May 8, 2004

There was a time, not too long ago, when miniature painting was on the verge of extinction. It has made a come back owing to the efforts of a small number of dedicated individuals, and the miniature department at the NCA, for instance, now attracts quite a crowd of young aspiring artists every year, competing to get enrolled in the programme.

Miniature painting is such a painstaking, time-consuming and eye-straining pursuit that in this push-button age only the very dedicated make it to the top. The ones who do are those who have an eye for details and who can think big but paint small. One such artist, who only paints this genre in its pristine traditional form is Islamabad-based miniaturist Najam Kazmi. He sprang a pleasant surprise on art enthusiasts in Karachi with his miniatures put up on display last month at the Zenaini Art Gallery.

Kazmi took about two-and-a-half years to produce 40-plus paintings. Included in these were two larger paintings done in the same style: one measuring 32 inches by 24 and another 22 by 16. Obviously, the larger paintings mean larger spaces to be filled in with meticulous details. Talking about the larger one, Kazmi said that if he were to paint two hours a day, he would take three months to complete such a painting. But he paints almost all through the night, when all is quiet and only music keeping him company.

So practised is his hand, he says, that he doesn’t need to first draw a sketch in pencil, he does that with a very fine brush made by himself — as demonstrated by him during the course of the show. It’s not just the painting brushes that he makes, he also produces his own colours with the help of natural material such as beetroots, carrots, spinach, egg yolk, gum and soot (to make black paint), and adds all this to poster colour. For making golden colour, he uses a 24-carat gold powder. And to keep insects away, he says, he adds neela thotha, an indigenous poison. The latter also adds to the life of the painting, he claims.

In some of Kazmi’s paintings there are also specimens of Persian calligraphy. Steeped in the Mughal style of miniature, his work cannot be called mere imitation because he also brings in some modern elements such as motifs and tile work that more in vogue today. There are vibrant portraits of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal. Kazmi draws everything from imagination, the facial and physical features of all Mughal kings right up to Bahadur Shah Zafar seem to be deeply etched in his mind.

Likewise, the scenes Kazmi paints are not too unfamiliar: there are darbars, battles, hunting expeditions, polo matches, music concerts — all filled with seemingly endless details. One miniature which shows Akbar, as a young prince, being weighed in gold was particularly attractive. Then there are paintings depicting Nishat Garden and Verenag Springs from Srinagar, the city that Kazmi spent his formative years in.

His paintings of the peacock are brilliant, but not as tender and appealing as the one showing a deer with a suckling fawn. This stands as a contrast to the one where a lion is being killed by hunters perched on elephantback. In this age of conservation of wildlife, it may not go down well with many people, but then he is depicting scenes from a period when big game hunting was supposed to be the highest form of sport.

It seems that everything is worked out in Kazmi’s mind before he picks up his brush. One can’t agree more with Rabia Zuberi when she says that there is great vibrancy of colour in his paintings. “The symmetry and precision in his work is amazing. His style is as mature as his control over the subject matter,” remarked Zuberi, who has watched many young painters attempting miniature and then giving up because the genre is very demanding.

The thirty-something Skardu-born painter also teaches younger students miniature painting, thereby keeping the tradition alive and his kitchen fire burning.