Page 63 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

60 ART AND CRAFTS

Shahabuddin. The Liberation War obsessed him and his experience of it gave him the
concept of the extreme dynamism of the human body. Shahabuddin’s reality is built in
the fashion of western anatomy and interplay of light and shade. He tears down this
mere reality through the frenzied handling of the paintbrush, and by partially absorbing
the intensely dynamic figures into the background. The movement of the figure is so
forceful that it appears that it will burst out of the canvas like an explosion, but as it is
integrated with the background in places, the canvas pulls it back into its own place.
Although his drawing, colors and light and shade are realistic, he establishes the subject
through a few forceful strokes by the powerful handling of the brush alone. The
background in his paintings remains almost indistinct, the subject becoming even more
intense against this neutral backdrop. Thus, Shahabuddin became modern without
transforming reality. Our Liberation War becomes manifest through passionate
emotions and support through his paintings. This is a specialty of Shahabuddin. In his
paintings, man is again established through his own grace in contrast to abstraction and
design oriented tendencies (pl. 1.27).
KMA Quayyum – a contemporary of Shahabuddin– sought in his painting untarnished
pure beauty. He went a long way in this quest, experimented with various types of
representation, gradually progressing from one stage to the other. Quayyum is
romantic by nature, which is present in his early subjects and the vivacity of his colors.
In the first phase, he drew rural subject matters in simplified outlines and represented
them through applying bright, flat colors, the artist’s childhood memories probably
being the key inspiration to this. In the subsequent phase, the tree become his main
subject occupying the whole canvas accompanied by people, birds etc. Although
masks and self-portraits and a few different compositions were noticed in between, a
microscopic observation of the beauty lying within trees, leaves, flowers etc. directed
Quayyum towards his pursuit. To create an independent form free of earthly existence
is the aspiration of his journey. Yet, his powerful fascination towards nature and the
fig. 1.35 Abul Barq living world pulls him towards organic forms. As a result, though his paintings do not
Alvi, Feeling-III, display any representation or resemblance, they create an impression of organic
gouache, 2000 vitality, which distinguishes him from the abstraction of many other artists. In later
times, he added geometric background and a few
detached parts of human anatomy to this subject
of nature. Perhaps he intends to place the
delicate and subtle accompaniment of tactile
sense at the same level as the most delicate
beauty of nature. Recently, Quayyum has used
the divergent pressure of cloth, rope and stone, as
if intending to represent anguished human
existence through it (pl. 1.26).
Farida Zaman appeared as an artist with original
characteristics at the end of the seventies. She