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March 7, 2004
Excerpts: Journey to self-realization
Dr Musarrat Hasan captures the state of restlessness of the pioneering artist Zubeida Agha
IN a festering world of devastating global and regional uncertainties just after the First World War and before the Second War, Zubeida Agha led a lonely secluded life. She chose a career for herself and pursued it, with a courage that faced scathing criticism, with undaunted composure. Zubeida was the first painter in Pakistan who presented the conceptual aspects of modernism, which were based on her inward journey in pursuit of greater awareness and self-realization.
She gave us the joy that genuine abstract art can create. She pioneered a legacy that has been built upon over the years. She was one of those artists for whom painting was not a profession in the commercial sense, but a passion that gave meaning to her life...
She was born at a time when the world was still trying to sort out the intellectual traumas that had raised their head in Europe towards the end of the 20th century. This was a time when every norm was being questioned and every tradition was confronted, shaken up and reassessed, in such a way that the world has not been and will never be the same again.
The two World Wars brought forth far-reaching social and political movements that destroyed the old material infrastructures and eroded the sanctity of the ideological super structure. The cultural upheaval was equally drastic and the confrontations in the artistic world had a great impact and resulted in consequences that have even lasted into the 21st century and have altered our way of feeling and thinking. That was the time when the term ‘modern’ started liberating art from its entrenchment in tradition and leading it towards trivial as well as breathtaking new possibilities.
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‘These then were some of the concerns that the art world was facing when Zubeida was born in 1922. Travellers and artists, many of whom came back home from London and Paris, brought these debates and diverse viewpoints were brought to the Punjab by travellers and artists. Some of them came back from other parts of the subcontinent like Bombay and Calcutta, where European influences had begun to arrive much earlier than in the northwestern part of the country.
From all accounts of her upbringing and education we realize that hers was an uncomplicated simple existence without the daily traumas of having to fight for her rights and privileges. Even though she was born in a conventional society she did not have to tackle any of the major problems that faced the girls of that time in her particular environment. For one, she was born in a family that believed in promoting quality education for the daughters as well as the sons. This was an unusual feature especially in the middle class Muslim families that lived in pre-Partition urban Punjab.
During those times any normal girl from Lahore would, if she received any education at all, rest on her laurels after a degree from Kinnaird College and quietly wait for her parents to arrange a suitable marriage for her. That seemed to be the general expectation, for Zubeida had till then not displayed any interest in a career. The fact that she joined a college which did not offer Fine Arts as one of the subjects for study is indicative of the fact that until that time she had not realized the extent of her own commitment. She might have been fascinated by colour but had not seriously contemplated adopting painting as her all encompassing employment, to the exclusion of every other concern in life.
In the social and political upheavals in the region closely following the two World Wars there was a profound insecurity of existence particularly for women. Zubeida saw around her a shattered established ethos and the eruption of religious violence, death and destruction in the Punjab, during the Partition of the subcontinent. The result, after all the fury and hatred had been spent, was uncertainty and a strange sense of loss, which usually comes when nations go through huge upheavals in their social and political evolution. This atmosphere created an estrangement in Zubeida and she began to find the study of philosophy and other subjects in her college strangely devoid of all meaning in her life.
Marjorie Hussain who talked to Zubeida just before she died remembers Zubeida talking about the Partition, “Speaking of the turmoil that accompanied Partition in 1947, Zubeida recalled the confusion and uncertainty... aware and compassionate, she deployed her energies to the need of the time, gradually becoming suffused with the desire to create from chaos’’. ‘The Horses’ is one of the few paintings she did in the year of Partition.
In the solemn and restrictive background that existed outside her home, Zubeida grew up in an oasis of a cultured progressive environment, where her intellectual upbringing was greatly nurtured and given its true importance. Her graduation from one of the premier colleges for women in Lahore gave her a pensive philosophical background and encouraged her to look around for a personal interest in life. Her class fellows recall her constant need to wash her hands during her stay in the college, which was perhaps a psychological manifestation of her dissatisfaction with what she was doing.
At around this time her family members recount her state of restlessness, which might have been caused by a recurring dream about colours, in which day after day she saw herself painting. She saw herself playing with vivid colours that stayed with her even during her waking moments. She recounted this dream to her parents and her elder brother Agha Abdul Hamid, who was an enlightened civil servant with a great deal of understanding and knowledge about art and literature. There must have been serious discussions among the family, which was gradually waking up to the realization that the slip of a girl with strange dreams was no ordinary person.
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Her brother Agha Hamid’s wide circle of friends included artists and writers. In 1944 he was able to arrange art lessons for her. Zubeida joined B.C. Sanyal’s studio, which was situated above the Regal cinema house on the Mall in Lahore. Sanyal was a maverick, whose unwillingness to conform had resulted in his ouster from the Mayo School of Art. He had refused to let this stop him from teaching art and had started his own studio, where he taught painting and drawing and held regular art exhibitions. Sanyal’s studio was a very popular place, frequented by artists, writers and art connoisseurs. There Zubeida, among other things, was introduced to the techniques of the old masters whose work she learnt to copy.
Zubeida expected to devote a short period of time to her lessons and told Mr Sanyal that she would be coming to attend his class only once a week. He did not argue with that and gave her enough assignments, so that she could keep practicing during the week, even at the time when she was away from the studio. Zubeida however would finish her assignment in one evening and was back the very next day. Sanyal made her draw rigorously from plaster casts and initiated her to water colours after fifteen days. Very soon she was painting in oils. She worked with Sanyal for almost a year, but found her sense of restlessness coming back to her.
Excerpted with permission from
Zubeida Agha: A Pioneer of Modern Art in Pakistan
By Musarrat Hasan
Pakistan National Council of the Arts and the journal
Arts and the Islamic World, Foundation for Museum of Modern Art, Lakson Square Building #2, Sarwar Shaheed Road, Karachi
Tel: 021-568 8241
Email: inl@hotmail.com
100pp. Price not listed
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