Untitled Document
| |
|
| |
| |
|
| |
|
| |
| |
|
| |
|
| |
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
Partner Organizations |
| |
|
| |
|
 |
| |
|
|
Untitled Document
|
|
|
|
|
| |
Author |
Najib Tareque |
| |
|
Title |
Shishir Bhattacharjee |
| |
|
Content |
Could have been the story of Reality
What are the qualities of a good student in an academy? Strict adherence to the academy’s curriculum and its rules or regulations is considered the prime quality of a good student of the academy. On top of it, those who can achieve the objectives of the academy’s curriculum in their own career, are especially recognized as among its most outstanding students. Shishir Bhattacharjee was known to us as one such outstanding student.
Can a good student of an Art Academy be always an artist? A good student can often be a good painter or a good sculptor, but not always, a great creative artist. There are many examples of good students earning a lot of money in their lifetime as talented painters or sculptors, but most of them are lost or not recognizable over the time in the world of creative art. Shishir could as well be one like that. We can be thankful to the contemporary time, which recognized and let Shishir grow into a creative artist in his own lifetime.
If Shishir just remained to be a good landscape or portrait painter, would the art of painting in Bangladesh suffer in any way? Would the art of world painting suffer an any way?
I move towards a twilight world ― in my head
Sometime even an obedient student revolts ― a docile lad may burn himself in the fire of a revolution. No, Shishir did not do anything like that.
The seed for the search of creative art is hidden in the system of education for fine arts in Bangladesh. One often hears it being said that, “If you want to be an artist, for the fine arts education that you received” or “If you cannot break out of standard form and style, you can never be a modern painter”.
It is through defiance of the ‘British Victorian’ type of syllabus and the ‘Bengal School’ of art that a Jainul could arise to be a genius or a Kamrul could make his outstanding contributions. Standing in their shadows, Shishir searched to find himself. With his pride of skill in copying European styles, a faith in leftist political ideology, Shishir carrying the name and disadvantage of a member of a minority community went on searching himself.
A train of reality images ― an unending struggle for survival. A desire to escape from the dark concepts and roots of Pakistan ― the dream of a ‘free Bangladesh’ in the minds of a few leftist intellectuals. Yet everywhere the presence of an overwhelming obstacle of communalism. That is how history is written in the world. That is why in a country which is legally and literally free, a Martin Luther King has to be born to fight for freedom, and a Black person or a woman still finds it difficult to be nominated for Presidential election. An artist is born only through witnessing and critical observation of such histories.
For youth ― the best time to join the war
The time is the decade of 90s of the last century ― Bangladesh is under the rule of a military General. Long before that, the best of the dreamers for Bangladesh had been brutally assassinated. After that, another military General’s rule came to the end only after his assassination.
All of that happened within the ten years between 1971 and 1981. The youthful spirit of the great Liberation War had not yet the time to grow old, and yet the middle-aged freedom fighters had grown into old ones. The new generation was a victim of history and in utter delusion. The ghosts of Pakistani communalism in the grab of religious fundamentalism were roaming all over the land, sometime openly and some other time secretly. There was only one ray of hope ― the eternal humanism and the youth’s strong desire for it. As usual, it was the students of Dhaka university who first came forward with their banners of defiance against the tyranny of military rule.
Shishir as a student of the university at the time, roamed all over its grounds. Being a good student, he did not regularly joining the processions. But because he was a good artist, there was great demand for his drawings and sketches for publication in political bulletins and magazines that were directed against the military junta and religious fundamentalists. Shishir started drawing humorous cartoons, which sharpened his political consciousness and involvement. Later, it was his sketches on the front pages and editorial cartoons in many national papers and magazines that made him famous as a prominent cartoonist, not only in this country but also in the whole world.
But Shishir was a born artist. How could he be satisfied just being only a good student or a good cartoonist? A cartoon depicts only one incidence or only one piece of news. The larger society, politics and life in general that are situated behind, in front or beyond it, that lie in its past and in its future, above it or below it or moving by all of its sides, have multifarious dimensions of their own. All those dimensions play their different tunes at all the ten directions in the mind of an artist.
Meanwhile, Shishir completed a year long training course on Fine Arts at Boroda in India. There his teacher was “Golam Mohammad Sheikh” whose name he oten reverentially reminded us again and again. He had opportunity to see and study the style of artwork at Ajanta and other ancient sites in India. He was good in mastering the European style of painting, as well as the various modern Indian styles. Combining the European style in a composition similar to that of Ajanta and Ellora, he created a significant art work at this time purely in black and white (“It could be the story of an actor”).
On return from Boroda, Shishir joined the Dhaka Charukala (Fine Arts) Institute as a teacher. Getting this job was not a very easy affair for Shishir. Whatever be his previous experience, soon he grew to be a very popular “Sir” among the students. At the same time, he became very popular in the country as the lead cartoonist of a national daily newspaper. Meanwhile, the military rule was over, and there had been many changes in his personal life. He brought colour into his sketches and paintings, and his compositions started to be more varied and open. His academic concepts and skills gradually started to take more impersonal and abstract forms.
We know, Shishir usually takes several days to complete anyone of his works. During this period, his experience from his daily life and his environment gets gradually seeped into his art work. Because of his, his memory often contributes important elements to his art work. Is it only his recent memory that plays a major role in his art? Does not his past memories also play a similar role? Does not his childhood memories also get reflected in his work? Probably it does. Those who have visited rural and small town bazaars in Bangladesh, it would be clear to them how these bazaars have played their roles in the scenes depicted by Shishir in his series of sketches captioned ‘Khela dekhay jun, Babu’ (‘Come, see the play, Sir’). It seems, even in naming this series of art work, Shishir really extended his hand to borrow the idea from his childhood memories.
‘Are you only a picture ― painted on a canvas’
There is no longer a political suffocation in the country. Shishir no longer has to carry the burden of a complex of being a member of a minority community. Uncertainties of a career and income are also rapidly disappearing. In addition to these, his personal life is happy. It seems, as if at last Shishir has got the time and opportunity to look in peace at himself, his art work, his society and his country. Shishir had seen and is still very much aware of the poverty in his country, now infested with corruption and pretensions of all kinds at all the levels of the society. By coming in close contact with commercial painters of rickshaws and cinema banners, Shishir, the most popular artist rediscovered himself on a new dimension. He discovered a new technique of the common people of expressing their feelings of being ignored and neglected by the privileged in the society. This technique, which is conspicuously present in our popular cinemas, was discovered long ago in this country at the time of ‘Chorjapod’.
We can explain this technique by a single English word ― ‘fantasy’. As to how this technique works in practice, we can understand it better from what Shishir himself says about it ―
“. . . audience group is completely from the middle-class and mostly, from the working classes. This kind of cinema is the only option for their enjoyment and entertainment. So, here all the bad and the odds (are depicted) as colourful with artificiality and (they remain) undisturbed by them. People know, the killing is not real ― the blood is just red colour. They love to be hypnotized for ninety minutes.
I find this platform or canvas of this popular cinema the safest place for me to depict what I intend to express. There is no question of logic or rationality . . .
. . . .All these descriptions above are miraculously relevant with the total socio-political situation of our country. ….this practical realistic film is not framed within ninety minutes but has a living continuity. . . .
. . . . For the publicity of such commercial popular cinema, there are beautiful posters and banners. These banners and posters are well composed as the way the film is, so any body can conceive a complete idea of the film. Frequent super- impose and juxtapose do not disturb the continuity of the whole narration.
I am convinced by this type of composition and pictorial language . . . . .
Way to express my anguish to the so-called sophisticated Fine Art. So the title of my painting is ‘The picture’ . . . .”
‘Poetry ― I give you leave today …’
Poet Shukanta, on observing the human misery in colonially subjugated Bengal, wanted to give leave to poetry itself. Shishir occasionally depicted sketches and drawings for poems. In the 90s, he depicted for a collection of poems. Poets contributing to this collection were all very young, but in their poems were reflected their youthful rebellious anger, satires and critical humor. One of them committed suicide (driven by his artistic sense to do so); the rest of them are all well established by now. Shishir never forgot those poets and their poems.
From his childhood, Shishir was acquainted with the poetry of Rabindranath, Jibanananda and others. After two decades of popularity as a cartoonist reflecting his critical observation of the prevailing socio-economic conditions and problems, Shishir in his mature life had a great urge to depict something reflecting his poetic vision of the world. So he painted his “Line and Lyrics..” ― with black lines on a white background. From the European point of view, the composition was partly ‘cubic’ and partly ‘angular’ in style, following some Indian paintings. His childhood experience of bazaars with the classical Indian concept of ten directions (north-south-east-west-the four angles between these plus up and down) is also present here. It looks familiar here and there, and yet do we know all of it? From the European point of view, ‘surreal’ or dreamlike, but not really so. Are we seeing a Mela (a fair for exhibition or entertainment) in rural Bangladesh ― lots of people, so many stalls, so much noise, so many diverse characters? We do not know what is good or what is bad. It was Rabindranath Tagore who once said, “A painting is something to see and enjoy.”
Najib Tareq
May 01, 2009.
|
| |
|
Jolrong Artist |
Shishir Bhattacharjee
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
| |
| |
|
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
|
