KARACHI: Drawing or painting a historic monument is not as easy a task as some art lovers think. The reason for it is that while recreating its beauty (presenting it in a contemporary setting) the artist has to be ultra aware of the historicity associated with the monument. This enables him to retain, and in certain cases enhance, the aesthetic value of that piece of construction without compromising on the historic and artistic elements that have gone into its making. Rauf Mughal, an exhibition of whose pen and ink artworks is under way at the Alliance Française, succeeds in doing that to a reasonable extent.

Mughal has a keen sense of observation and noteworthy ability to draw clean and strong lines. So when he recreates an old building, its contours look so sharp that the viewer, for a fraction of a second, forgets that it’s a structure built many moons ago. The famous Taj Mahal has been drawn many a time. Mughal tries his hand at it as well, and does a decent job, mainly because he manages to capture the (romantic) character of the work of architecture through flowing shades and firm lines.

But with Karachi’s ‘Mere­wether Tower’, he takes a step ahead and doesn’t just arrest the beauty of the building but also captures the everyday mood around it. This is achieved by showing the movement (human or vehicular) that takes place most of the time on the roads flanking the colonial clock tower. As a result, the viewer straddles, happily at that, two worlds — of the glorious past and an uncertain present.

The exhibition will run until Feb 22.  

Published in Dawn, February 18th, 2017