If one has to pick a single genre of art in Pakistan, that not only has made its mark in the national and international art circles but also attained eternal acceptance and popularity among the masses, landscape painting would be the only option.

From the Mughal Miniature tradition to the Colonial Company Painting and from the pioneers of art in Pakistan like Allah Bakhsh and Khalid Iqbal to the exponents who made this genre as their identity, namely Zulqarnain Haider, Ijaz ul Hassan, Ghulam Rasul and Ghulam Mustafa; landscape painting has evolved in Pakistan steadily and smoothly.

Zulfiqar Ali Zulfi, in the last quarter, has impressed many art lovers, critics and viewers with his subtle variation of chiaroscuro (an effect of contrasted light and shadow.) and mastery in rendering geometric and colour-based perspective. His main emphasis has always been on the pastoral life in the Punjab plains where the sun shines to enhance shades of the soil and mist falls in winter to diffuse the vision to a level where the artist has to bring his percipience into play for rendering this atmosphere at the various levels of perceived reality.

Zulfiqar Ali Zulfi engages viewers with his signature palette and enticing compositions

The inaugural exhibition at the newly built Zulfi’s Art Gallery Lahore, which is owned by the artist himself, not only displayed an assortment of the vibrant and colourful landscape paintings but also provided the artist an opportunity to hang his gigantic size frames; letting the sun set and dusk fall on the stretched surface of the canvas.

The most notable feature of his landscape is the serenity that he creates with the light falling on or through the trees across a pedestrian path or over a small water-stream with clouds floating over and against the blue of sky, in a realistic rendering and surrealistic appearance.

Critically speaking, these landscapes seem closely similar to the shimmering European environs that John Constable has presented in his famous landscape paintings during the early period of the 19th century. However, with his keen observation and much practised skills, Zulfi has engaged viewers with his signature palette and enticing compositions.

In all the displayed paintings, regardless of their sizes, the artist composed these landscapes where the background proportionates the foreground at a ratio of three times to one. This much space as the background facilitates the artist to render subtle details and shapes of clouds in the sky; tinged with yellow and orange dusk-light creating an effect of the golden lining.

Still water

General perception about Zulfi’s landscape is that he paints light, vegetation, soil and clouds with an exquisite observation and delicate layers of colour pigments. He has also been painting figures, but mostly within his cityscapes; especially to represent the street culture of the walled-city Lahore. However, in this show, he experimented with his landscapes by composing a lonely female, sitting unhappily on a rock or near a tree, to add emotional value in the already sensitive environment. The experiment seemed a little obscure in comparison to the painter’s expertise over his genre; it appeared as a self-imposed effort rather than an instinctive endeavour.

Zulfi belongs to DG Khan where, since his childhood, he has seen all colours of the soil and ever-changing shades of the nature. Although his palette does not correspond to the defused atmosphere of the Punjab plains, his landscape paintings, in exuberant colours and quixotic light, appeal the viewer at the subconscious and unconscious levels. Therefore, the onlooker cannot resist relating the painted environment to the trance-like surroundings of his or her dreams and fantasies.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, May 24th, 2015

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