Paintings and Painters, in the eyes of the uncles

 

I am an elementary disciple of many poet uncles, chiefly, of course of Shakespeare, the bard, and the chachā (uncle) Ghālib. I also have pretensions of being a lover of visual art. But how did my uncles look at painters and their artworks?

 

Although Anglo-Saxon art had developed as a unique English style and later, medieval period had a tradition of religious paintings, the advent of Anglican reformation was not very supportive of art as such. Nicholas Hilliard, ‘the first native-born genius of English painting’ was a contemporary of the bard and many painters had started making their mark but it was still not an art form which commanded great respect.

 

Arts were always patronized in India, particularly by the royal court, and great traditions of cave, temple wall and mural arts flourished down the ages since pre-historic times. Mughal emperors were known to be great sponsors of fine art. Individual artists, however, never attained the status of a great poet or playwright. Recognition of individual artists started in the late nineteenth century only after protagonists of Indian art such as Raja Ravi Varma adapted the western conventions and techniques like oil painting. Ghālib, therefore, would hardly see painting as High Art.

 

I will begin with this favorite sher of mine:

 

Ye mo.ajiza bhī dekhā hamne kamāl-e-fan kā

Chup ho agar muṣavvir tasvīr boltī hai

(mo.ajiza: wonderment, kamāl-e-fan: excellence of skill, muṣavvir: painter, tasvīr: painting, image, picture. I am a witness to this wonderment of the excellence of a skill, if the painter is silent, their painting speaks). 

So, the painting speaks and it is up to us to interpret it the way we would. Shakeel Badayuni expressed it beautifully, in some other context though, all about the eyes of the beholder (and incidentally, the last resort of the tenderfoot art-lovers like me when asked to explain a modern artwork):

 

Bhej dī tasvīr apnī un ko ye likh kar Shakil

aap kī marzī hai chāhe jis nazar se dekhiye

 

Chachā Ghālib perhaps regarded the muṣavvir as a mere drawer of portraits and therefore this tongue in cheek sher:

 

Sīkhe haiñ mah-ruḳhoñ ke liye ham muṣavvirī

taqrīb kuchh to bahr-e-mulāqāt chāhiye

(mah-ruḳhoñ: moon-faced, muṣavvirī: art of painting, taqrīb: occasion, ceremony, bahr-e-mulāqāt: for meeting)

 

Ghālib says that he has learnt the art of painting for the sake of the beautiful ones with a face like the moon to afford him some occasion, or means, to meet them. The first misra conveys an earnest extolment of (and being wonder-struck at) the ravishing beauties, so much so that to capture it, he has learnt to become a painter. But he goes elegantly and ironically jocular in the second misra, clearly showing his lack of interest in becoming a trained painter but a mere trick to use it as a practical excuse for immediacy with such beauties, as a stratagem to try and win their love. Why is Ghālib pretending to have learnt painting, after all he is already a very gifted poet-wordsmith who can portray the alluring beauties in graceful words? Because the intention, disarmingly, is to seek proximity of the beauties, which a painter can get more easily than a gifted poet. As we all know, lovers can go to extreme, often ludicrous, lengths to win the favour of their beloved. Muṣavvirī is an art which offers great opportunities to be in close proximity of the beloved under the pretext of painting her portrait. Painting was, after all, still not as exalted an art form as poetry in his times, and therefore, this a condescending tone for this art form itself.

 

The sher may be interpreted metaphysically as well. Devotees learn music to sing bhajans (devotional songs) or learn poetry to compose divine poems in praise of Almighty. These are but ways and means to approach the Lord, not ends in themselves. Consider this sher in the context of this visual art, which again is only a means to a specific purpose, not more than that:

 

Aañkh kī tasvīr sar-nāme pe khīñchī hai ki tā

tujh pe khul jaave ki is ko hasrat-e-dīdār hai

(tasvīr: picture, sar-nāme: letterhead, tā: until, to hasrat-e-dīdār: longing, yearning to see. Instead of writing a letter, I have drawn a picture of an eye on the head, or the envelope, so it would become clear to you that the writer of the letter has an extremely great longing for your sight.)

 

Ghālib has not made many references to art of painting. Some examples, however, as this one refers to an under-coat of paint:

 

Kiyā yak-sar gudāz-e-dil niyāz-e-joshish-e-hasrat

suvaidā nusḳha-e-tah-bandi-e-dāġh-e-tamannā hai

(yak-sar: completely, gudāz-e-dil: heart’s tenderness, niyāz-e-joshish-e-hasrat: supplication of fervour of desire, suvaidā: black dot (on heart), nusḳha-e-tah-bandi-e-dāġh-e-tamannā: prescription of removal (under-coat) of spot of desire. Tenderness of the heart has become an offering to the ardour of longing, or it became useful to the overflowing desires as it melted the heart. Ebullition of longing/grief since it melted the heart! The molten suvaida is like an under-coat for the wound of the heart; suvaida being black, its blackness was spread on the heart so that on top of it the color of the wound of the unfulfillment of longing could be applied. The colour (wound) is so black that the under-coat for it is itself black.

 

Yet, on the power of drawing, I recall this sher:

 

Naqsh ko us ke muṣavvir par bhī kyā kyā nāz haiñ

kheñchtā hai jis qadar utnā hī khiñchtā jaa.e hai

(Naqsh: painting, picture. The artwork plays so many flirtations with its painter, more the painter draws, more it draws itself or pulls itself away)

 

Or, this clever one, finding some merit in the painting but with a saucy reasoning:

 

kamāl-e-ḥusn agar mauqūf-e-andāz-e-taġhāful ho

takalluf bar-t̤araf tujh se tirī tasvīr behtar hai

(kamāl-e ḥusn: the magic of beauty, mauqūf-e-andāz-e-taġhāful: dependent on the styles of apathy, takalluf: formality, bar-t̤araf: sideline, keep aside. If the magical beauty is dependent on, or affected by the styles of indifference to me, keeping formality aside, I would say that the picture is better than her)

 

Thinking beyond the oft-quoted, “The object of art is to give life a shape” from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, on visual art, I remembered Sonnet 24.

 

In Sonnet 53, the bard places the great beauty of his beloved even superior to the male Adonis and female Helen, the two beautiful youth from Greek mythology, and beyond the capability of painters to paint (or even writers to write); painting Adonis or Helen to portray the beloved, a painter would only manage a poor imitation of the beloved or the beloved merely wearing Grecian costumes respectively:

 

…Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit

Is poorly imitated after you.

On Helen’s cheek all art of beauty set,

And you in Grecian tires are painted new…

 

In the first lines of this sonnet, the lover fashions his eyes as a painter, stealing a painter’s pen, with which it has painted an image of the beloved on the table of his heart, with blood flowing from the canvas of heart. This canvas on the lover’s heart is inside his body as it is in a frame, and therefore, protected there. It subsequently alludes to the skill of an artist and their ability to portray the perspective with accuracy.

 

Mine eye hath played the painter and hath steeled

Thy beauty’s form in table of my heart.

My body is the frame wherein ’tis held,

And pérspective it is best painter’s art…

…Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me

Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun

Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;

Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art,

They draw but what they see, know not the hear

 

Ghālib again from the ghazal with matl.a, “Muddat huī hai yaar ko mehmāñ…charāġhāñ kiye hue”:

 

Phir bhar rahā huuñ ḳhāma-e-mizhgāñ ba-ḳhūn-e-dil

sāz-e-chaman tarāzi-e-dāmāñ kiye hue 

(ḳhāma-e-mizhgāñ: pen of eyelashes, ba-ḳhūn-e-dil: with blood from heart, sāz-e-chaman: music of the garden, tarāzi-e-dāmāñ: style of hem. The quill, the pen of my eyelashes I fill up with the blood from my heart, to decorate the fringes of my vest with forms and colours of flowers of a blossoming garden)

Ghālib’s portrayal has the use of same adroit imagery, although less complicated, as the bard. The bard has the vanity, if I may call it so, that his beloved visualizes this painting through the window of her eyes, starting complementary chain of viewing each other’s eyes. The lover in the sonnet calls it stealing of a painter’s pen and thus a pattern in blood from the canvas of heart flows, imagining himself looking into the beloved’s eyes, into the image of his own eyes and then into his heart on which that image lies. Ghālib suggests an imagery indelibly carved by a pen like painting of garden which pleads itself to be glanced by the eyes of his beloved, a thought that the eyes of the beloved gracing his art carries on in this sher too:  

Chāhe hai phir kisī ko muqābil meñ aarzū

surme se tez dashna-e-mizhgāñ kiye hue

(muqābil: matching, in front (of), in comparison (with), aarzū: wish, desire, longing, surme: kohl, dashna-e-mizhgāñ: dagger like eyelids. My wistful desires long to be face to face with someone who would have her dagger-like eyelashes sharpened by the use of kohl’s ebony.)

 

As you can see, I have digressed because there was not much to find on visual arts in the works of these masters. Interestingly, they would hardly have had the slightest drift to inspire painters but their poetry was so universal that this was precisely what has happened. Painters have attempted to capture scenes from the bard’s plays and the theme of Ghalib’s poetry. That has indeed created a unique visual tradition. About that, Inshallah, soon…

 

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