The recent Punjab University publication, Landscapes, Cityscapes and Related Conceptual Paintings, is bound to delight those art enthusiasts who believe that old is gold. Propping up the Punjab landscape tradition the volume showcases some rare gems for up-close examination. Curated and compiled by Rahat Naveed Masud and Barbara Schmitz, it originally accompanied a landscape exhibition honouring the College of Art and Design, University of Punjab, held last year at the Lahore Museum.

Segmented into separate chapters on Landscape, Cityscape and Conceptual landscape painters as well as Traditional and Contemporary Trends, the volume comprises 74 high-quality images of paintings and 33 researched articles about the artists and their work. Minus wordy technical terminology, the reader-friendly text focuses on specifics of significant paintings, chronological details and working method technicalities of the artists.

Essentially descriptive and informative this volume can be viewed as an apt forerunner to a future expanded survey and critical evaluation of landscape painting history in Pakistan (if such a project materialises).

Concentrating on founder Khalid Iqbal, “acknowledged as one of the first and finest landscape artists of Pakistan” and qualified, committed, fellow members like Zulqarnain Haider, Ghulam Rasul, Shahid Jalal and Ijazul Hasan as pioneers of the movement, the volume establishes the centrality of the Punjab landscape painting platform. The exquisite visuals accompanied by explanatory text on how each artist selects his site, gauges the play of light, settles on a focal point and then renders the image in his individual style, immediately connects the art with the text.

This also points to the intriguing mix of diversity and homogeneity within the tradition. All the members adhered to realism and shared the ideology of capturing the essence of the land with the eye of a native but opted for varied styles, approaches and chromatic choices. Among the artists mentioned from the subsequent generation of painters only Mughees Riaz and to some extent Kaleem Khan have shown such degree of fidelity to the genre. Is this particular brand of art facing extinction? Reason enough to treasure and archive it.

In the section, Cityscape painters, the accent is on cultural subjects, pictorial extravaganza, pronounced painterly skills and styles of experts like Anna Molka, Ghulam Mustafa and Dr Ajaz Anwer. The ‘Conceptual landscape painters’ sections throws up some surprises — Abdur Rahman Chughtai’s imaginary landscapes (referring to the painting ‘Sweet memory’) and Colin David’s cubist oriented cityscape ‘The kite’ are revelations which prompt the need to initiate discourse on other experimental, abstract landscapes painted by prominent artists in tandem with their signature styles. Mussarat Mirza exhibits in Karachi but art by Moyene Najmi, Zubeda Javed, Khalid Mahmud, etc. has seldom, if at all, been shown in the metropolis. Their inclusion in the volume can be read as an introduction to their distinctive productions.

How tradition travels, inspires, prompts or filters into contemporary styles can be well gauged in the concluding section, Tradition and Contemporary trends. The literal, the idyllic and the picturesque is evident in works by Musarat Hasan, Iqbal Hussain and Rahat Naveed. But, it is bold ruptures from tradition or indulgences in radically new approaches by Kehkashan Jafri, Maliha Azami, Amjad Naeem, Mirza Matloob Baig, Anila Zulfiqar and Muhammed Arshed that infuse fresh blood in the landscape tradition. However, the injection of feeling in their works pertains more to stylistic definitions and personal exuberance rather than a ‘love for the land’ so obvious in the paintings of the traditionalists. Perhaps it is this soulful romance with the land and its culture that classifies the ‘Punjab landscape painters’ as a breed apart.