Narrating history through art

The partition of the subcontinent 70 years ago is a subject that continues to preoccupy historians and biographers even after a passage of seven decades, a period long enough for subjects to be lost in the mists of the foggy past. 

Be it Saadat Hassan Manto right after Partition or Abdullah Hussein with his “Weary Generations” (1999), or the movie makers in far away Britain or Hollywood, the subject still interests novelists, historians and biographers. Happily enough this has gone a long way towards acquainting three generations with history in a set-up where history doesn’t seem to interest the educationists.

Not to be left behind in this race are artists and lots and lots of work has been done in the field by artists through their visual and graphic representations of the event.  

An exhibition on the subject opened at the Grandeur Art Gallery in town on Tuesday. All 40 paintings by a large group of artists, around 36 of them, adorn the walls of the gallery and will continue to do so up until August 25. Most of the 40 paintings pertain directly, or remotely, to the partition of the subcontinent. They either describe the actual event or the feelings of patriotism that underlie the event.

One of the sketches shows a ship majestically sailing into the harbour and the stroke of real artistry by Kamran Khan is the fact that more than the ship, it is the Pakistan flag fluttering on the mast of the ship that attracts the viewers’ attention. It is a masterly stroke of realism. In fact, the best part of the exhibition is that most of the sketches are from the school of realism. There’s no abstract art.

Perhaps the one that sits real well with the viewer is one with a portrait of Mr Jinnah with all the icons of Pakistan, the Minar-e-Pakistan at Lahore, Karachi’s Frere Hall, the Quaid’s Mausoleum, the Baab-e-Khyber at Peshawar, with groups of refugees carrying piles of their belongings on their heads. This, perhaps, is the most descriptive work at the exhibition by artist Naish Rafi.

Naish is an adherent of the realism school of art. This work too is an exercise in realism and she doesn’t leave it to the viewer to indulge in mental acrobatics to figure out what the work is all about.  

Naish, a graduate in fine arts from the University of Karachi has impressive antecedents. She is the winner of the Sadequain Award and participated in a group show in London, titled “Art for art’s sake”. She has works of hers being currently displayed in other exhibitions in town too.