Friend and Art
Mynoddin Ahmed*
With a view to tracking the underlying meaning of the theme of the seminar ‘Friend and Art’. I asked myself three relevant questions. The first was what is Friend while the second being how I should be looking at the term Art in this context. Interestingly the third question automatically followed which was how many different perspectives could be discovered by a play of permutation and combination of these two words.
A.
From the prehistoric time art was integral to life for the whole mankind; they were inter-dependent. The first cave paintings could as well be an artistic culmination of the friendship and solidarity of the ancient men which found an artistic expression on the walls of the cave. Even if the exact reason for cave paintings may be yet to decipher, we still know that they ware still the reflection of the co-existence of ancient men with the wild beasts. It can be understood that the process of taming the wild beasts ultimately had a vital role in the creation of cave-painting.
However, I would rather not be bounded within frame of history that started with cave painting for explaining art. Art is universal and interestingly we observe an elite or an aristocrat may be a connoisseur/collector of artwork and may tend to increase his collection by buying artworks of famous painters and similarly even a street urchin may be very much a lover of art where he hangs the poster of his favourite footballer or hero of film on the wall of his room. In both cases, the elite and the street urchin live with their favourite artwork for both of them art is a friend.
The indigenous artists of Bangladesh create various images where we find the theme of friendship they draw motifs of twin birds, two elephants or some other animal and botanical motifs which are the symbolic representation of friendship. We see image of these kinds in the works of carpenter, mason, potter, ironsmith, goldsmith and so on.
The tools of the different professionals or even of the house wives are needed to be friendly for the works to be created. In this regard, their tools are their friends on whom they can depend and whom they can trust.
When a reader chooses a book to read or even when an ordinary man chooses his clothes to wear, there is surely a consideration of the Art of the book or of the clothes. And generally no one accepts a thing unless it is art-friendly. So, we can reach an equation where art and life can be synonymous. Therefore, when we say, we live life, in fact, we live art.
B.
Numerous paintings on the theme of ‘Friend and Art’ can be traced along the history of art. I would rather confine my discussion within the limit of some paintings of the painters of modern era. From the 19th century people and their interrelationship started to be portrayed sans an indication of any divine will. The artists scrutinized their relationship with their near and dear ones through varied experimentation. Many an artist depicted their companions or for that matter their friends on their pictorial space. These portraits are not merely the known anatomical feature of their friends, rather an attempt to see deep into the niche of their friendship with the torch of the subjective power of the mind. And therefore these art-works revealed the essence of friendship or define the meaning of friend.
Paul Gauguin framed the abnormal syche in the trance of creation of his friend Van Gogh engaged in depicting the sunflower. Likewise, Van Gogh portrayed his friends postman Joseph Roulin and doctor Gachet in which we read the map of Gogh’s extra-sensuous mind, rather than the exterior features of his friends. Toulouse Lautrec portrayed his friend Aristide Bruant in the language of poster-art with an effect of special graphic treatment.
It could he said that Picasso made a memoir by depicting his near and dear ones on his canvas. It started with the depiction of the sad demise of Casagemas who accompanied Picasso in 1900 in his first visit to Paris from Barcelona. Gertrude stein, Ambroise Vollard and many other men and women got immortality to Picasso’s canvas by virtue of friendship. Cubist or classical, whatever the language is Picasso delineated many human figures and named them ‘Friend’ or “Friendship.”
There are surely many more examples in art history that could be related with the theme of Friend and Art. I tried to look into the theme of the seminar by eluding to a few prominent works of art.
Let us look at Bangladesh now. Here painters have looked at the tropical terrain of rich vegetation with monsoon rain chiefly from an optimistic point of view. Zainul Abedin, the pioneer of modernism in Bangladesh saw the friendly human bondage in toiling mass. But the friendship in serene mood is also evident in the space of this master painter.
Quamrul Hasan, another master painter of country revitalized modernism with a new interpretation of folk art. he delineated a happy ambience by drawing images of woman folk. In his experimentation friendship is explained with the help of three modes of expression; Renaissance’s naturalism, Cubism and Bengal Folk-art. Abdus Shakoor, a renowned artist of the 1970’s, following the path of great modernist master presented the celebration of human relation by putting human face in his composition created with bright colours and forms related to the idioms of folk-art.
One aspires to be with the others — this universal feeling translated in so many language of art throughout the globe. Thousands of art works are the representations of the happy existence of human life.
This article will be presented along with the projection of some images of paintings mentioned in this paper.
* Mynoddin Ahmed is known as an art critic by pen name Moinuddin Khaled