in the great storytelling tradition of the wonderful shahram khosravi, here is a story about sadequain and i.
i think that it would be appropriate to say that sadequain (1930-1987) is to pakistan what diego rivera is to mexico. maybe even more. an iconic calligrapher and muralist, he was part of an islamic arts movement which emerged in north africa and parts of asia in the 1950s.
in this movement, \u201cartists rejected western art concepts, and instead searched for a new visual language that reflected their own culture and heritage.\u201d for calligraphy, it became a kind of renaissance.
not interested in \u201cdecorating the drawing rooms of the rich and powerful,\u201d sadequain gave away innumerable paintings to friends and admirers, and painted mammoth allegorical murals in public spaces with titles like \u2018the saga of labor,\u2019 a tribute to the working class people of pakistan. a prolific painter and poet, sadequain also wrote \u201chundreds of rubaiyat in the style of omar khayyam.\u201d
it just so happened that sadequain lived in islamabad, a few houses down the street from my high school.
once over summer break, i decided to take art classes close to my school. they were organized by the pakistan national council of the arts and proved to be spectacular. some of pakistan\u2019s foremost artists came to teach us, we learned to sketch and paint with oils, we had live models who helped us capture the human body on paper and canvas, and we went on day trips to draw en plein air.
after one such trip, we were walking back to the studio when we spotted sadequain. he was sitting in his garden, wearing a crisp white kurta, enjoying a restful summer eve, a cup of tea in hand.
second part of story coming soon. [sadequain\u2019s portrait by TJ bhatti + his calligraphy at lahore museum]
#sadequain #sadequainart #islamabad #art #artclasses #sketching #oilpainting #pakistan #calligraphy #islamicart #murals #storytelling #storytime
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in the great storytelling tradition of the wonderful shahram khosravi, here is a story about sadequain and i. i think that it would be appropriate to say that sadequain (1930-1987) is to pakistan what diego rivera is to mexico. maybe even more. an iconic calligrapher and muralist, he was part of an islamic arts movement … Continue reading sadequain and i \u2013 part one<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[15,1,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19106"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19106"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21427,"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19106\/revisions\/21427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}