Karachi Chronicle: Art and pseudo critic

In the Muslim world the artist and the pseudo critic do not share the same outlook on life. An artist is someone who produces works of beauty such as paintings and sculptures, while a pseudo the critic is largely a bigot: someone who is persistently prejudiced and refuses to tolerate the opinion of others. Recently, the activists of two religious groups allegedly spray painted hate messages over murals of six women painted on the Karachi Press Club (KPC) boundary wall.
The murals were commissioned by Hamara Karachi to truck-artist Haider Ali of the 'Phool Patti' group who has been painting bright pictures of nature on walls all over the city in an attempt to beautify the streetscape. Both organisations have the same mission: to spread peace and harmony, all their other work show scenes from nature or colourful geometric patterns. It is only on the KPC walls they chose to paint murals of six famous women of Karachi who have never bowed down to criticism or threats of the bigots. Two of them, social worker Perveen Rehman and rights activist Sabeen Mahmud were murdered.
The disfigurement of the murals was not only an act of intolerance of figurative art, it was also an insult to the KPC which is a bastion of the freedom of expression in art, literature, politics and religion. However, the club's sentiments were soon made clear to the bigots when renowned cartoonist Feica cleaned the graffiti off the murals.
Nevertheless, the murals should not have been painted in the first place. It showed crass ignorance of Muslim culture as well as the history of Muslim art. Depiction of living creatures, birds, animals and human beings, has always been criticised by orthodox Muslim authority, the ulema, who are not necessarily bigoted or intolerant like the mean-minded fellows who despoiled the KPC murals. Painting has flourished in all ages of Muslim time but hounding of artists and vandalising their art work, including burning of books with miniature paintings, has always accompanied the rise of fanaticism, as it is today.
Muslim art, though it is beautiful, does not depict the portrait of a person either in paint or as sculpture, or hardly ever. Sculpture and portrait painting are even today the weakest expression of Muslim art, as can be amply proved from the murals painted on the KPC boundary wall. These are not works of art; they are simply literal rendition of photographs lacking aesthetics. Any true portrait painter can protect his work only within doors; to display it in a public place is bound to invite trouble. The day those murals appeared I knew what would be their fate. Such a public display of portraits, especially women, was bound to be exploited by fanatics.
In his well-researched novel on miniature painting, 'My Name is Red' Ohran Pamuk describes the murder of two artists, one who feels guilty about drawing realistic human figures and another who secretly paints the portrait of the Turkish Sultan in the 'Frankish' style. This novel is a 'must read' for all who work in the Muslim Art section of museums in the USA and Europe because it gives a detailed account of the cultural background and history of figural depiction. This is so they do not ignore cultural sentiments.
Interestingly, our religious-minded people do not seem to disapprove of photographs. Their own pictures appear in newspapers; their martyrs are shown on posters, which also often decorate the KPC boundary wall. In short, it is only art that is disapproved by the bigots. I do not think they would mind their own photograph taken. So is there holy sanction of photographs but none for painted portraits? I want to know.