The splendour of watercolours

The Ocean Art Galleries of Karachi have hosted many an interesting show and ‘Splendour of Watercolour’, featuring the cityscapes and portraits of Professor Dr. M. Ali Bhatti and the landscapes and ancient architecture of A.Q. Arif  (all untitled) was no exception. Interestingly, though their works in this exhibition show no common theme, both artists have the experience of portrait painting: A.Q. Arif having begun his painting career as a portrait artist. Meanwhile, Dr. Bhatti is a world renowned contemporary painter, with an MFA major in printing from Edinboro University, Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Arts from Ohio University. He has been painting for 30 years, and has over 30 national and international solo exhibitions to his credit. In his early years he was inclined towards figurative art and following this became an accomplished portrait painter. His current work depicts the various emotions and obsessions of common people. He has included a few cityscapes in his exhibits, though they do not have the appeal of the portraits and concentrate mainly on traffic in the busy city of yesteryear. Obviously this selection of 39 portraits and cityscapes represents the work of many years.

Most of Dr. Bhatti's portraits are of men - sad men, humble men, defeated men

Throughout history and across cultures, people have exhibited a fascination with faces, and in turn with portrait representation, which is also a record of the interaction between artist and subject. However, in the ancient Mediterranean civilisations of Greece, Rome and Byzantium, the portrait was mainly a public art form or a type of funerary art for gods, royalty and popes. It was designed to decorate public areas and to reflect the morals and religious values of the day. During the Dutch and German Renaissances, oil paint was considered to be conducive to realistic pictures, while many portrait artists tried to enhance the standing of their paintings and subjects by giving them a historical, mythological or religious setting.



Most of Dr. Bhatti’s portraits are of men - mostly sad men, humble men, defeated men. There are a few confident men and a few happy men but the flower of the collection is the four portraits of ladies, all smiling except for one moody young girl. The winner is number 5, depicting a young woman with a pretty face, her costume mostly suggested by brush strokes, apart from her colourful dupatta, artistically draped. And at the other end of the spectrum we have a dignified, smiling, mature woman. Somehow her skin lacks translucence, but note the points of light in the eyes, the direct gaze at the viewer! Although, the lined forehead suggests that life, after all, is not easy. All in all, it is the ladies’ expression, rather than the costume that captivates the viewer, which is probably to be expected in a portrait, though throughout most of the collection, the artist’s interesting preference for a rough, irregular wash is surprising.

Number 20 shows a middle-aged man, still in the full vigour of life, and with a confident, steady gaze and well defined features. His hair - some of it emerging from a green turban - and his beard show some interesting brushwork, and he is backed by a fairly smooth green wash. Likewise, the younger man in a blue beret is backed by a smooth blue wash. His eyes beneath their heavy eyebrows are partly obscured by the large lenses popular in his day, while his almost shoulder-length, hennaed hair and beard are here and there touched with grey. The two men show an interesting contrast.

As one progresses though the exhibition, one comes to realise that in all these portraits the technique is repeated, with the wash matching the clothing of the subject.  Furthermore, with the various textures and patches of darker colour, negative spaces in the background are rendered positive. So looking at number 34, we observe a striking figure, all in shades of grey before a rough grey wash. Only the face is presented beneath the striped grey turban, and most of it is covered by the bushy beard and the unkempt hair. What is he thinking of, with his eyes cast down beneath the untrimmed eyebrows? Does he typify the sadness of old age or is his expression one of solemnity?

A frankly sad expression exists in the eyes of the fakir pictured in number 10, and the only colour in the picture is in the pattern on his cap. His appears to be the sad lot of the village fakir, a kind of lesser pir, who, one is told, mostly frequents shrines and such places. He prays and begs and it seems he may give advice, whereas in the past he was looked upon as a healer and a ‘worker of wonders.’  In the cities, he makes more money, so maybe the cause of his sadness is poverty. Meanwhile, number 17 presents an old man, head wreathed in his chaddar, while he, too, is all in grey. He is pictured at an interesting, sideways angle, with his face turned towards the viewer, and just a suggestion of his shoulder. Once again, he appears sad, due to the dullness of his expression, as he looks at us over the rims of his huge glasses, perched halfway down his nose, though the quality of light gives a shiny look to his face.

On the whole, while almost all of the women are smiling, most of the men shown by Dr. Bhatti appear either sad or at least serious. But a happy and amusing example is in number 7, which shows a smiling villager with his chaddar draped over his shoulder. Very interestingly, the colour of his brightly hennaed hair appears to have escaped into the upper portion of the wash. It’s so nice to see a smile, though the artist has given a realistic picture of the lower or zero-income Sindhi.

As for A.Q. Arif, he graduated from the Karachi School of Art in 1996, and began exhibiting in Karachi, and in Lahore, where he was captivated by the beauty of the rural landscape and sense of space. Space is also present in some of the cityscapes in the current exhibition, for which he has submitted 28 pictures. Some of his early works were portraits, but later he began to work on a larger scale, endeavouring to fuse history with nature. He has exhibited widely, both in his country and abroad, where his work has been shown in London, Singapore, Dubai, Italy, the U.S.A., India, Malaysia and Jeddah.

A.Q. Arif's visionary compositions have simplicity and directness in their appearance, though the underlying references are full of rich symbolism and a marked spirituality

As with many artists, creativity is an ongoing process with A.Q. Arif. One may deduce this by comparing his works shown previously at the Clifton Art Gallery and those at the Ocean Galleries. Moonlight and water are important elements in his work involving the portrayal of Mughal monuments.  Meanwhile, his works have been described aptly as visionary compositions, with a simplicity and directness in their appearance, though the underlying references are full of rich symbolism and a marked spirituality.

With his skillful drawing and the guidance of his strong powers of intuition, most important to a gifted artist, he restructures the buildings he has seen. There may be no sign of human presence, depending on his preference, but we are aware of the legacy they’ve left behind.  In the collection now under review, however, several of the landscapes or Mughal-style cityscapes do include actual human presence.

In this exhibition, mist figures rather prominently - an image of great spiritual significance

His first picture is a riverscape, beautifully rendered, principally in various shades of blue, with just enough of green and grey, along with the blackness of the trees. The diagonal lines, an important element in landscapes, enhance the impact of the composition, with just a little evidence of human habitation. The mist filling one or two of the valleys is quite breathtaking, while the river below also has its share of this, reminding one of the mists that suddenly appear in Murree, charging up the valleys so thickly that in a matter of minutes one can barely see one’s neighbour’s house.

In this exhibition, mist figures rather prominently, and if we think of the spiritual significance of it, we find that it can symbolise spiritual initiation, or a passage through an area where we cannot perceive things clearly. It can indicate a way from one state of awareness to another. In a dream, mist suggests that we can reach our goal, provided that we take into account our own confusion. When asked why he so often showed mist in his work, Arif replied, “The reason why I use mist quite a lot in my pictures is that I like to give a dreamy effect, and also because most of  these I see in my dreams.”

Arif’s picture of a brown mosque surrounded by water is quite impressive, though it presents a puzzle, in that there are quite a number of people wading in this water.  Since water represents all that of which we are unaware, or that which we have not experienced, one wonders what they seek. Due to the mist we cannot say that the lines of the building are altogether clear, but it features four of the domes (these being powerful  symbols of the vault of heaven) he loves to employ, while here and there a few more are visible though the mist. This is a very well-balanced picture, with the trees on either side forming a somewhat misty inner frame, while at the sides there are a few arches - structures with a deep spiritual and psychic resonance - and those at the right with the glint of water inside. Amongst other things, arches are entry points into liminal space, through which one passes to enter the spiritual world, while in mythology, they are understood as thresholds of time and space, drawing one’s gaze upwards to a higher ideal or a transcendental reality.

Another mosque which he has presented at first glance looked like a stupa, a kind of architecture adopted in parts of Asia, where it became prominent as a Buddhist monument for enshrining sacred relics. But a more careful perusal identified it as a Muslim structure of some kind, its outlines vaguely visible through the mist, vaguely outlined people here and there, as well as hazy trees forming an inner border, while outside its boundaries other structures add interest. But what a sky: itself like a romantic dream, though the solid line of blue above gives a firm inner frame, while the darker foreground gives firmness to the lower edge.

A phone call to the artist revealed that the painting is actually based on the Mazaar of Shah Rukn-e-Alam, in the city of Multan. It is actually the mausoleum of the Sufi saint, Sheikh Rukn-ud-Din Abul Fateh, and was built between 1320 and 1324 in the pre-Mughal style, though of course the artist has pictured it according to the dictates of his imagination. It is said to have been built by Ghias-ud-Din Tughlak during his governorship of Depalpur, and given by his son, Muhammad bin Tughluq, to the descendants of Shah Rukn-e-Alam for the latter’s burial in 1330. Its entire, glittering, glazed interior is the result of tiles and brickwork done by the Kashigars of Multan, and it has been nominated as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Now to rivers and bridges. The ancient image of the the dead crossing the River Styx accompanied by the mercenary ferryman Charon has largely been superceded by that of the bridge, which in the literal sense provides a crossing from one point to another in a certain locality, or in a wider sense, from country to country. However, in dreams it signifies a crossing from one state of being to another, spanning the River of Life. It also signifies the emotional connection between oneself and other people, or it may symbolise a critical juncture in life - or even birth.

A captivating study, entirely in shades of grey, really grasps our attention with its river, its bridge, its clock tower - actually Big Ben - and its turreted old building - the Houses of Parliament in London. This is from the days when bridges were symmetrical and beautiful, unlike the purely functional structures of today. It is a long bridge, actually the Big Ben London Bridge, featuring a series of cavern-like arches - these being an architectural form described by a certain Greek philosopher as the joining of the two weakest points to gain the maximum strength. The river is not still, of course, like a pool or a lake, but it moves slowly enough to allow minimal reflections and patterns on the surface water. The artist has obviously observed all this very keenly.

We are fortunate to have seen such a variety of works by two outstanding and mature artists.

Noor Jehan Mecklai is based in Karachi