HYDERABAD, March 26: “Art is greater than science,” so says the great philosopher Schopenhauer arguing, “because the latter proceeds by laborious accumulations and cautious reasoning, while the former reaches its goal at once by intuition and presentation; science can get along with talent, but art requires genius”.

The University of Sindh, the mother university of the Sindh province, albeit late has finally acknowledged the supreme importance of arts by organising its first three-week international art exhibition at the imposing new building of its department of arts and design, which has been upgraded to an institute namely the Institute of Art and Design.

The three-week exhibition inaugurated on Tuesday is unique in terms of number of art work as it displays no less than 400 paintings.

The exhibition coincides with the university’s first ever three-day international moot on art, inaugurated the same day.

The paintings by consummate and budding artists put on display at the three huge galleries of the institute attract hundreds of people from all walks of life including students and teachers of Sindh, Mehran and Liaquat universities and different colleges and schools.

Both the conference and the exhibition have been named after renowned artist Gul Jee in recognition of his massive contribution to art.

The convenor of the exhibition, Ms Waheeda Baloch, said that works of art from different parts of the country were still pouring in. She was extremely happy over the response from national and international scholars and artists.

An artist from Turkey, Ms Gulten Imamoglu, has displayed one of her paintings titled “existence in acrylic style”. She depicts social and cultural life in different parts, history, nature, beauty, mountains, greenery, old heritage, archaeology, important sites of the country, sketches and portraits of important personalities and pain and mirth of daily life.

Nepal’s artists Ms Ragni and Radhe Shyam Mulmi have put on display six paintings in water colour. The artwork of Indian artist Ved Nayar represents natural beauty painted in light colours. The paintings by Northern Island artist Michael Rice focuses on ceramic items representing different period of human development.

Gul Jee’s abstract calligraphic paintings demonstrating his dynamic power of spontaneous creativity and boldness of expression as well as works of art by well known artists Aftab Zafar, Musarrat Mirza in water colour and oil and Mashkoor Raza’s paintings are the major attractions of the exhibition.

The oil paintings of Mazhar Afroze and Jamal Shah focus on the role of women in society, Mansoor Aye’s works revolve around rural women and Tasadduq Sohail highlights the old culture and traditions in their paintings.

The other artists who are participating in the exhibition include Naheed Raza, A.Q. Arif, Asif Jamil, Zubeda Javed, Anila Zulfiqar and Ghulam Mustafa.

The paintings by artists from Gach Rang School of Art, National College of Arts and F.G. College Rawalpindi Islamabad on a variety of subjects are part of the exhibition.

The works of art by the head of the Department of Fine Arts of the University of Peshawar, Prof Saeedullah Khan, faculty members and students, Artists Association of Balochistan, Department of Fine Arts of the Islamia University Bahawalpur, Centre of Excellence in Arts and Design MUET as well as works by noted artist and director of the Institute of Art and Design of the University of Sindh, Dr Mohammad Ali Bhatti, have also been put on display.