June 19, 2004

When you come to count them you find that for graduate and postgraduate studies in fine arts, the government has provided only a few institutions in the country: the departments in the five universities of Punjab, Karachi, Hyderabad, Peshawar and Quetta, and the federal government’s prestigious National College of Arts (NCA) at Lahore, with no such arrangement in Azad Kashmir.

One would think from this very small number for such a big country that talent for art in our young men and women was woefully lacking. And considering that the population of Punjab is more than the combined populations of the other three provinces, and the area is certainly more advanced than the rest of Pakistan (except Karachi) it is a sad commentary on the state’s perception of the potential for art in the nation. So far as the administration in Punjab is concerned, it’s a shame.

And yet it is not so. I mean there is no shortage of talent and desire for art education among the people. It is now a proven fact that talent for art and craft or science is of the same level in all parts of the world, among all peoples, all races, whether they are Parisians or Eskimos, Zulu warriors, the Japanese or Red Indians. God has not made any people more intelligent or more stupid than others.

The difference in feeling for art lies in opportunity, traditions that have been handed down, and general education, and the basic attitude of a people towards a certain subject or facility, again fostered by these conditions. For example, we frown on dance as immoral while it is part of Hindu culture and religion. These are the premises that give a certain people the reputation for doing something better than others.

A peon I once knew in the income tax office in Peshawar was so good at drawing that his works decorated the sitting rooms of all officers of the department. He used to make pencil copies of paintings, and his ability to reproduce was simply amazing. Of course he had no art education, in fact hardly any education at all, and no artistic background or family history.

Without any fear of contradiction I can say that hundreds of Picassos and Dalis and Sadequains are living in Pakistan, maybe in the form of unlettered villagers, without anyone being aware of their talent in art; without, in fact, they themselves being aware of their extraordinary gift which is likely to go untapped to the grave. This is the case everywhere. But if there is awareness and there is innate desire to draw or paint, there should be opportunity to express oneself. I know that in advanced countries the provision of art education is not the entire responsibility of the state, but Pakistan has not yet reached that stage and the government must learn to fill the vacuum. If as a nation we are averse to drawing and painting, we have to foster art for other reasons, for the sake of engineering and the manufacturing industry. It may not be common knowledge that even a common pin cannot be produced without its design being first made on paper, giving its specifications and a final look. That is why students who take up art design in the NCA are immediately grabbed by industry on attractive salaries.

We are determined to industrialize ourselves but we are not arranging the basic input — designers. The beautiful new cotton prints you see in TV advertisements every day, where do you think they come from? From the pencils and paint-boxes of art designers. This is just one example. There is a highly prized design department at the NCA but it is of the degree status. What we need is a large number of polytechnics at a lower level to meet the ever-growing need for designers in medium-sized and small industries.

Similarly, the fine arts department of the NCA has produced a number of brilliant artists and painters. But what happens is that the college picks up its annual entry from raw material. Students who join the graduate degree class of five years need never have drawn or painted before. The college gives them a test, usually a vase, and many of them make a drawing for the first time in their lives to show that they have the basic ability.

This is not on. Long before a boys and girls even think of entering the NCA, their talent for art should be known to their parents and teachers. The propensity should have made itself evident at a much lower level in school. And then, what about the thousands of born artists (like that peon in the income tax office in Peshawar) who are never discovered or who never even dream of going to art school?

In our time in school (this was before independence) much stress was laid on drawing. That was the stage where the aptitude for art was discovered and fostered, although not much was done to develop it later on. A good drawing master seemed only interested in preparing the art-minded boy to become a drawing master like himself and not to see if he possessed any real sense of art. However, this talk is futile, because now, in our schools, the drawing master has become extinct — like the dinosaur.

Whenever an exhibition by a group of artists is held, it is interesting to find out how many of them are without any formal training in art and how many have passed through art schools. I have noticed that a good 20 per cent were initially self-taught and then tried to find some time out of their own work to take a few lessons from established painters.

In the sixties I decided to start painting without knowing even the rudiments of oil as a medium. I bought a book, one of those do-it-yourself things, and made three pictures. I came to know by that time how much talent I possessed, and gave up. The three “works” have since hung in my bedroom, out of sight of visitors, as relics of my artistic adventure. There should have been a system whereby I could have known in my schooldays what I was worth.

Some two years ago a friend of mine died, a senior officer in the postal department. In the eighties he was bitten by the art bug. But he had the talent. He became a prolific painter and experimented with everything — abstract, realistic, impressionist and what-have-you — just because he was highly educated and knew about all the trends, trying to find out his metier. A fatal illness laid him low and he passed away without being able to decide in which of these styles his heart and mind lay. A strange case.

Apart from such examples of self-discovery, there is no attempt on the part of the education authorities to find out and foster artistic talent among youth. As for professional level art training, there should be prototypes of the National College of Arts in every provincial capital. Thankfully private academies are doing a lot of good work in this regard, but that is no substitute for a degree or diploma in art from a state institution. The main thing is that formal art schools provide the grounding, both practical and intellectual, that is nowadays considered necessary for a wholetime involvement in art. There is much to be done in this field before the government can say that it is providing adequate facilities for art instruction in the country.