Aziz Art August 2018
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AZIZ ART<br />
<strong>August</strong> <strong>2018</strong><br />
Giorgio de Chirico<br />
HALA KHAYAT<br />
Ismail al-Shaikhly<br />
Shakir Hassan Al<br />
Said
1-Giorgio de Chirico<br />
11-Hala Khayat<br />
13-Ismail al-Shaikhly<br />
19-Shakir Hassan Al Said<br />
Director: <strong>Aziz</strong> Anzabi<br />
Editor : Nafiseh Yaghoubi<br />
Translator : Asra Yaghoubi<br />
Research: Zohreh Nazari<br />
http://www.aziz_anzabi.com
Giorgio de Chirico<br />
10 July 1888 – 20 November 1978<br />
was an Italian artist and writer. In<br />
the years before World War I, he<br />
founded the scuola metafisica art<br />
movement, which profoundly<br />
influenced the surrealists. After<br />
1919, he became interested in<br />
traditional painting techniques,<br />
and worked in a neoclassical or<br />
neo-Baroque style, while<br />
frequently revisiting the<br />
metaphysical themes of his earlier<br />
work.<br />
Life and works<br />
De Chirico was born in Volos,<br />
Greece, to a Genoan mother and a<br />
Sicilian father.[After studying art at<br />
Athens Polytechnic—mainly under<br />
the guidance of the influential<br />
Greek painters Georgios Roilos<br />
and Georgios Jakobides—and<br />
Florence, he moved to Germany in<br />
1906, following his father's death<br />
in 1905. He entered the Academy<br />
of Fine <strong>Art</strong>s in Munich, where he<br />
studied under Max Klinger and<br />
read the writings of the<br />
philosophers Nietzsche, <strong>Art</strong>hur<br />
Schopenhauer and Otto<br />
Weininger. There, he also studied<br />
the works of Arnold Böcklin.<br />
He returned to Italy in the summer<br />
of 1909 and spent six months in<br />
Milan. At the beginning of 1910, he<br />
moved to Florence where he<br />
painted the first of his<br />
'Metaphysical Town Square' series,<br />
The Enigma of an Autumn<br />
Afternoon, after the revelation he<br />
felt in Piazza Santa Croce. He also<br />
painted The Enigma of the Oracle<br />
while in Florence. In July 1911 he<br />
spent a few days in Turin on his way<br />
to Paris. De Chirico was profoundly<br />
moved by what he called the<br />
'metaphysical aspect' of Turin,<br />
especially the architecture of its<br />
archways and piazzas. De Chirico<br />
moved to Paris in July 1911, where<br />
he joined his brother Andrea.<br />
Through his brother he met Pierre<br />
Laprade, a member of the jury at<br />
the Salon d'Automne, where he<br />
exhibited three of his works:<br />
Enigma of the Oracle, Enigma of an<br />
Afternoon and Self-Portrait. During<br />
1913 he exhibited paintings at the<br />
Salon des Indépendants and Salon<br />
d’Automne; his work was noticed<br />
by Pablo Picasso and Guillaume<br />
Apollinaire, and he sold his first<br />
painting, The Red Tower. In 1914,<br />
through Apollinaire, he met the art<br />
1
dealer Paul Guillaume, with whom<br />
he signed a contract for his artistic<br />
output.<br />
At the outbreak of World War I,<br />
he returned to Italy. Upon his<br />
arrival in May 1915, he enlisted in<br />
the army, but he was considered<br />
unfit for work and assigned to the<br />
hospital at Ferrara. Here he met<br />
with Carlo Carrà and together they<br />
founded the pittura metafisica<br />
movement.[2] He continued to<br />
paint, and in 1918, he transferred<br />
to Rome. Starting from 1918, his<br />
work was exhibited extensively in<br />
Europe.<br />
De Chirico is best known for the<br />
paintings he produced between<br />
1909 and 1919, his metaphysical<br />
period, which are characterized<br />
by haunted, brooding moods<br />
evoked by their images. At the<br />
start of<br />
this period, his subjects were still<br />
cityscapes inspired by the bright<br />
daylight of Mediterranean cities,<br />
but gradually he turned his<br />
attention to studies of cluttered<br />
storerooms, sometimes inhabited<br />
by mannequin-like hybrid figures.<br />
In autumn, 1919, de Chirico<br />
published an article in Valori plastici<br />
entitled "The Return of<br />
Craftsmanship", in which he<br />
advocated a return to traditional<br />
methods and iconography.This<br />
article heralded an abrupt change<br />
in his artistic orientation, as he<br />
adopted a classicizing manner<br />
inspired by such old masters as<br />
Raphael and Signorelli, and became<br />
an outspoken opponent of modern<br />
art.<br />
In the early 1920s, the Surrealist<br />
writer André Breton discovered one<br />
of de Chirico's metaphysical<br />
paintings on display in Guillaume's<br />
Paris gallery, and was<br />
enthralled.Numerous young artists<br />
who were similarly affected by de<br />
Chirico's imagery became the core<br />
of the Paris Surrealist group<br />
centered around Breton. In 1924 de<br />
Chirico visited Paris and was<br />
accepted into the group, although<br />
the surrealists were severely critical<br />
of his post-metaphysical work.
De Chirico met and married his<br />
first wife, the Russian ballerina<br />
Raissa Gurievich in 1925, and<br />
together they moved to Paris.His<br />
relationship with the Surrealists<br />
grew increasingly contentious, as<br />
they publicly disparaged his new<br />
work; by 1926 he had come to<br />
regard them as "cretinous and<br />
hostile".They soon parted ways in<br />
acrimony. In 1928 he held his first<br />
exhibition in New York City and<br />
shortly afterwards, London. He<br />
wrote essays on art and other<br />
subjects, and in 1929 published a<br />
novel entitled Hebdomeros, the<br />
Metaphysician. Also in 1929, he<br />
made stage designs for Sergei<br />
Diaghilev.<br />
De Chirico in 1970,<br />
photographed by Paolo Monti.<br />
Fondo Paolo Monti, BEIC<br />
In 1930, de Chirico met his<br />
second wife, Isabella Pakszwer Far,<br />
a Russian, with whom he would<br />
remain for the rest of his life.<br />
Together they moved to Italy in<br />
1932 and to the US in 1936,[2]<br />
finally settling in Rome in 1944.<br />
In 1948 he bought a house<br />
near the Spanish Steps which is<br />
now a museum dedicated to his<br />
work.<br />
In 1939, he adopted a neo-Baroque<br />
style influenced by Rubens.De<br />
Chirico's later paintings never<br />
received the same critical praise as<br />
did those from his metaphysical<br />
period. He resented this, as he<br />
thought his later work was better<br />
and more mature. He nevertheless<br />
produced backdated "selfforgeries"<br />
both to profit from his<br />
earlier success, and as an act of<br />
revenge—retribution for the critical<br />
preference for his early work.He<br />
also denounced many paintings<br />
attributed to him in public and<br />
private collections as forgeries. In<br />
1945, he published his memoirs.<br />
He remained extremely prolific<br />
even as he approached his 90th<br />
year. During the 1960s,<br />
Massimiliano Fuksas worked in his<br />
atelier. In 1974 de Chirico was<br />
elected to the French Académie des<br />
Beaux-<strong>Art</strong>s. He died in Rome on 20<br />
November 1978.<br />
His brother, Andrea de Chirico, who<br />
became famous under the name<br />
Alberto Savinio, was also a writer<br />
and a painter.
Style<br />
In the paintings of his<br />
metaphysical period, de Chirico<br />
developed a repertoire of<br />
motifs—empty arcades, towers,<br />
elongated shadows, mannequins,<br />
and trains among others—that he<br />
arranged to create "images of<br />
forlornness and emptiness" that<br />
paradoxically also convey a feeling<br />
of "power and freedom<br />
".According to Sanford<br />
Schwartz, de Chirico—whose<br />
father was a railroad engineer—<br />
painted images that suggest "the<br />
way you take in buildings and<br />
vistas from the perspective of a<br />
train window. His towers, walls,<br />
and plazas seem to flash by, and<br />
you are made to feel the power<br />
that comes from seeing things<br />
that way: you feel you know them<br />
more intimately than the people<br />
do who live with them day by day."<br />
In 1982, Robert Hughes wrote<br />
that de Chirico<br />
could condense voluminous feeling<br />
through metaphor<br />
and association ... In The Joy of<br />
Return, 1915, de Chirico's train has<br />
once more entered the city ... a<br />
bright ball of vapor hovers directly<br />
above its smokestack. Perhaps it<br />
comes from the train and is near<br />
us. Or possibly it is a cloud on the<br />
horizon, lit by the sun that never<br />
penetrates the buildings, in the last<br />
electric blue silence of dusk. It<br />
contracts the near and the far,<br />
enchanting one's sense of space.<br />
Early de Chiricos are full of such<br />
effects. Et quid amabo nisi quod<br />
aenigma est? ("What shall I love if<br />
not the enigma?")—this question,<br />
inscribed by the young artist on his<br />
self-portrait in 1911, is their<br />
subtext.<br />
In this, he resembles his more<br />
representational American<br />
contemporary, Edward Hopper:<br />
their pictures' low sunlight, their<br />
deep and often irrational shadows,<br />
their empty walkways and<br />
portentous silences creating an<br />
enigmatic visual poetry.
legacy<br />
De Chirico won praise for his work<br />
almost immediately from the<br />
writer Guillaume Apollinaire, who<br />
helped to introduce his work to<br />
the later Surrealists. De Chirico<br />
strongly influenced the Surrealist<br />
movement: Yves Tanguy wrote<br />
how one day in 1922 he saw one<br />
of de Chirico's paintings in an art<br />
dealer's window, and was so<br />
impressed by it he resolved on the<br />
spot to become an<br />
artist—although he had never<br />
even held a brush. Other<br />
Surrealists who acknowledged de<br />
Chirico's influence include Max<br />
Ernst, Salvador Dalí, and René<br />
Magritte. Other artists as diverse<br />
as Giorgio Morandi, Carlo Carrà,<br />
Paul Delvaux, Carel Willink, Harue<br />
Koga and Philip Guston were<br />
influenced by de Chirico.<br />
De Chirico's style has influenced<br />
several filmmakers, particularly in<br />
the 1950s through 1970s. The<br />
visual style of the French animated<br />
film Le Roi et l'oiseau, by Paul<br />
Grimault and Jacques Prévert, was<br />
influenced by de Chirico's work,<br />
primarily via Tanguy, a friend of<br />
Prévert. The visual style of Valerio<br />
Zurlini's film The Desert of the<br />
Tartars (1976) was influenced by de<br />
Chirico's work. Michelangelo<br />
Antonioni, the Italian film director,<br />
also claimed to be influenced by de<br />
Chirico. Some comparison can be<br />
made to the long takes in<br />
Antonioni's films from the 1960s, in<br />
which the camera continues to<br />
linger on desolate cityscapes<br />
populated by a few distant figures,<br />
or none at all, in the absence of the<br />
film's protagonists.<br />
Writers who have appreciated de<br />
Chirico include John Ashbery, who<br />
has called Hebdomeros<br />
"probably...the finest [major work<br />
of Surrealist fiction]."Several of<br />
Sylvia Plath's poems are influenced<br />
by de Chirico. In his book Blizzard of<br />
One Mark Strand included a poetic<br />
diptych called "Two de Chiricos:"<br />
"The Philosopher's Conquest" and<br />
"The Disquieting Muses."<br />
Gabriele Tinti has composed three<br />
poemsinspired by Giorgio de<br />
Chirico’s paintings; The Nostalgia of<br />
the poet (1914),The Uncertainty of<br />
the Poet (1913) and Ariadne<br />
(1913),respectively in the<br />
collections of Peggy Guggenheim<br />
Collection.
Tate and Metropolitan Museum of <strong>Art</strong>. The poems were read by actor<br />
Burt Young at The Met in New York<br />
The box art for Fumito Ueda's PlayStation 2 game Ico used in Japan and<br />
Europe was strongly influenced by de Chirico.The cover art of New<br />
Order's single "Thieves Like Us" is based on de Chirico's painting The<br />
Evil Genius of a King.<br />
Honours<br />
1958: Member of the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine <strong>Art</strong>s<br />
of Belgium.<br />
Academie de France.
Selected works<br />
Flight of the Centauri, Enigma of an Autumn Afternoon and Enigma of<br />
the Oracle (1909)<br />
Ritratto di Andrea de Chirico (Alias Alberto Savinio) (1909–1910)<br />
The Enigma of the Hour (1911)<br />
The Nostalgia of the Infinite (1911), or 1912–1913<br />
Melanconia, The Enigma of the Arrival and La Matinée Angoissante<br />
(1912)<br />
The Soothsayers Recompense, The Red Tower, Ariadne, The Awakening<br />
of Ariadne, The Uncertainty of the Poet, La Statua Silenziosa, The<br />
Anxious Journey, Melancholy of a Beautiful Day, Le Rêve Transformé,<br />
and Self-Portrait (1913)<br />
The Anguish of Departure (begun in 1913), Portrait of Guillaume<br />
Apollinaire, The Nostalgia of the Poet, L'Énigme de la fatalité, Gare<br />
Montparnasse (The Melancholy of Departure), The Song of Love, The<br />
Enigma of a Day, The Philosopher's Conquest, The Child's Brain, The<br />
Philosopher and the Poet, Still Life: Turin in Spring, Piazza d'Italia<br />
(Autumn Melancholy), and Melancholy and Mystery of a Street (1914)<br />
The Evil Genius of a King (begun in 1914), The Seer (or The Prophet),<br />
Piazza d’Italia, The Double Dream of Spring, The Purity of a Dream, Two<br />
Sisters (The Jewish Angel) and The Duo (1915)<br />
Andromache, The Melancholy of Departure, The Disquieting Muses,<br />
Metaphysical Interior with Biscuits (1916)<br />
Metaphysical Interior with Large Factory and The Faithful Servitor (both<br />
began in 1916), The Great Metaphysician, Ettore e Andromaca,<br />
Metaphysical Interior, Geometric Composition with Landscape and<br />
Factory and Great Metaphysical Interior (1917)<br />
Metaphysical Muses and Hermetic Melancholy (1918)<br />
Still Life with Salami and The Sacred Fish (1919)<br />
Self-portrait (1920)<br />
The Disquieting Muses (1947), replica of the 1916 painting, University<br />
of Iowa Museum of <strong>Art</strong>
Italian Piazza, Maschere and Departure of the Argonauts (1921)<br />
The Prodigal Son (1922)<br />
Florentine Still Life (c. 1923)<br />
The House with the Green Shutters (1924)<br />
The Great Machine (1925) Honolulu Museum of <strong>Art</strong><br />
Au Bord de la Mer, Le Grand Automate, The Terrible Games,<br />
Mannequins on the Seashore and The Painter (1925)<br />
La Commedia e la Tragedia (Commedia Romana), The Painter's Family<br />
and Cupboards in a Valley (1926)<br />
L’Esprit de Domination, The Eventuality of Destiny (Monumental<br />
Figures), Mobili nella valle and The Archaeologists (1927)<br />
Temple et Forêt dans la Chambre (1928)<br />
Gladiatori (began in 1927), The Archaeologists IV (from the series<br />
Metamorphosis), The return of the Prodigal son I (from the series<br />
Metamorphosis) and Bagnante (Ritratto di Raissa) (1929)<br />
I fuochi sacri (for the Calligrammes) 1929<br />
Illustrations from the book Calligrammes by Guillaume Apollinaire<br />
(1930)<br />
I Gladiatori (Combattimento) (1931)<br />
Milan Cathedral, 1932<br />
Cavalos a Beira-Mar (1932–1933)<br />
Cavalli in Riva al Mare (1934)<br />
La Vasca di Bagni Misteriosi (1936)<br />
The Vexations of The Thinker (1937)<br />
Self-portrait (1935–1937)<br />
Archeologi (1940)<br />
Illustrations from the book L’Apocalisse (1941)<br />
Portrait of Clarice Lispector (1945)<br />
Villa Medici – Temple and Statue (1945)<br />
Minerva (1947)<br />
Metaphysical Interior with Workshop (1948)<br />
Venecia, Puente de Rialto<br />
Fiat (1950)
Piazza d'Italia (1952)<br />
The Fall – Via Crucis (1947–54)<br />
Venezia, Isola di San Giorgio (1955)<br />
Salambò su un cavallo impennato (1956)<br />
Metaphysical Interior with Biscuits (1958)<br />
Piazza d'Italia (1962)<br />
Cornipedes, (1963)<br />
La mia mano sinistra, (1963), Chianciano Museum of <strong>Art</strong><br />
Manichino (1964)<br />
Ettore e Andromaca (1966)<br />
The Return of Ulysses, Interno Metafisico con Nudo Anatomico and<br />
Mysterious Baths – Flight Toward the Sea (1968)<br />
Il rimorso di Oreste, La Biga Invincibile and Solitudine della Gente di<br />
Circo (1969)<br />
Orfeo Trovatore Stanco, Intero Metafisico and Muse with Broken<br />
Column (1970)<br />
Metaphysical Interior with Setting Sun (1971)<br />
Sole sul cavalletto (1973)<br />
Mobili e rocce in una stanza, La Mattina ai Bagni misteriosi, Piazza<br />
d'Italia con Statua Equestre, La mattina ai bagni misteriosi and Ettore e<br />
Andromaca (1973)<br />
Pianto d'amore – Ettore e Andromaca and The Sailors' Barracks (1974)
HALA KHAYAT<br />
Hala Khayat is the Head of Sales<br />
at Christie's Middle East. She has a<br />
BA in Fine <strong>Art</strong>s & Visual<br />
Communications from the<br />
University of Damascus, Syria and<br />
an MA in Design Studies from<br />
Central St Martin's College of <strong>Art</strong> &<br />
Design, London. She has held a<br />
variety of roles in the world of art<br />
and journalism, including working<br />
as an <strong>Art</strong> Consultant for galleries in<br />
Damascus. She is a regular speaker<br />
on the history of Arab art and the<br />
Middle Eastern <strong>Art</strong> Market.<br />
It is not often that a private<br />
collection dedicates itself entirely<br />
to providing a full overview of<br />
almost a century of art from one<br />
region. However, during many long<br />
years living in the United Kingdom,<br />
Syrian-British couple Rona and<br />
Walid Jalanbo viewed art collecting<br />
as a natural link back to their<br />
heritage and culture.<br />
When the Jalanbos began<br />
acquiring art some 30 years ago,<br />
they did so with a view that Middle<br />
Eastern art - particularly that from<br />
Syria - was beautiful, rich in<br />
diversity, and lacking basic support<br />
from the international art world.<br />
From early on, Rona and Walid<br />
were devoted patrons of<br />
contemporary art from the region,<br />
encouraging many young artists<br />
early in their careers with a buying<br />
power that enabled them to<br />
continue to plan exhibitions and<br />
create. All works were bought with<br />
an insightful curatorial eye – they<br />
meshed important modern art<br />
pieces with pieces from the<br />
developing contemporary art<br />
scene.<br />
11
The more I got to know and work<br />
with the Jalanbos, the more I saw<br />
that they were choosing works<br />
with a larger vision of eventually<br />
setting up a public art foundation.<br />
The idea was that this space<br />
would one day develop into a<br />
creative hub for all young<br />
enthusiasts to come, share<br />
ideas, and take inspiration from<br />
the works on display. The plans<br />
and location for the creative<br />
space were in order but were<br />
sadly halted when the Syrian<br />
conflict began in 2011. Until that<br />
point, the collection had only been<br />
on view privately in the homes of<br />
Rona and Walid. It was then that<br />
their son, Khaled, took the<br />
initiative to archive and<br />
document the collection and<br />
replace the plans for the physical<br />
domain with this website.<br />
The importance of a collection of<br />
this scale going public cannot be<br />
overstated. Not only is it<br />
unearthing modern Middle Eastern<br />
masterpieces by artists such as<br />
Chaura, Moudarres, Kayyali and<br />
Yagan that have never been<br />
publically viewed before, but it is<br />
also shedding light on<br />
contemporary and emerging artists<br />
from our region and increasing<br />
their reach. This is a tremendously<br />
exciting project for everyone in the<br />
Middle Eastern art world,<br />
particularly given the educational<br />
and forward-thinking direction it is<br />
taking.
Ismail al-Shaikhly<br />
is considered an early pioneer of<br />
Iraqi modern art. He developed a<br />
unique style that resulted from a<br />
diverse set of influences. His<br />
mature works are instantly<br />
recognizable for their abstracted<br />
human figures, vibrant color<br />
combinations, and obscured<br />
backgrounds. However,<br />
there were many iterations of al-<br />
Shaikhly's favored subject matter,<br />
Iraqi village life, over the course of<br />
his career. Like others of his<br />
generation of artists, al-Shaikhly<br />
was a versatile painter who<br />
experimented with various modes<br />
of representation. As a result, his<br />
oeuvre exhibits a range of stylistic<br />
references and negotiations.<br />
Al-Shaikhly was educated at the<br />
Institute of Fine <strong>Art</strong> in Baghdad<br />
and was a member of the first<br />
graduating class of 1945. At the<br />
institute, the artist studied under<br />
Faiq Hassan, one of the leading<br />
figures in the Iraqi art world, and<br />
was his most gifted student. After<br />
graduating, al-Shaikhly became its<br />
first alumnus to study abroad,<br />
attending the École Nationale<br />
Supérieure des Beaux-<strong>Art</strong>s in Paris<br />
in 1951. He returned to Baghdad<br />
and was an influential member of<br />
the Pioneers Group, an artist<br />
society founded by Faiq Hassan. He<br />
became the group's leader in 1962<br />
after Hassan stepped down. Al-<br />
Shaikhly was also a founding<br />
member of the Society of Iraqi<br />
Plastic <strong>Art</strong>ists and joined the Iraqi<br />
<strong>Art</strong>ist Society. Professionally, his<br />
most distinguished position was as<br />
the director general of the<br />
Directorate of Plastic <strong>Art</strong>s in<br />
Baghdad.<br />
Al-Shaikhly's early work reflects the<br />
influence of his mentor, Faiq<br />
Hassan, and the artistic production<br />
of these two painters has often<br />
been compared. Indeed, there are<br />
striking similarities between the<br />
work of the master and pupil. They<br />
both favored the Iraqi countryside<br />
and village life as subject matter.<br />
Likewise, the quaint,<br />
impressionistic treatment of people<br />
and nature in each of their<br />
canvases hints at a close didactic<br />
relationship between the artists.<br />
However, this resemblance<br />
characterizes an early period in al-<br />
Shaikhly's career,<br />
13
after which he would venture out<br />
into his own artistic realm. His<br />
mature style is abstract,<br />
demonstrating the artist's interest<br />
in form and color at the willing<br />
expense of narrative but not<br />
subject matter.<br />
Women figure prominently as a<br />
central theme in al-Shaikhly's<br />
work. Throughout his various<br />
experiments with representations,<br />
he remained faithful to the<br />
feminine form. He seems to have<br />
been interested in the exploration<br />
of a singular subject, perhaps<br />
desiring to unleash its aesthetic<br />
potential. It is significant that he<br />
selected a subject that has<br />
occupied artistic expression since<br />
the daybreak of humanity, the<br />
female body.<br />
Oftentimes painting them in<br />
groupings, the artist's females<br />
gaze out at the viewer with<br />
pointed stares. Simplified with<br />
oval faces and generic bodies,<br />
they seem to be in various states<br />
of coming and going: to the<br />
mosque, to the souq, to some<br />
domestic chore. Yet they pause for<br />
the painter to capture their<br />
individual attitudes along with their<br />
homogenous shapes. There is a<br />
rhythm implied in the repetition of<br />
ovals, squares, and strong curved<br />
lines that reflects the pace of the<br />
women's daily lives, as well as the<br />
artist's interest in patterning within<br />
the Islamic ornamental tradition.<br />
In the artist's more iconic paintings,<br />
produced in the last two decades of<br />
the twentieth century, the female<br />
groups move in and out of a fading<br />
background. His subjects seem to<br />
be wanderers in a hazy landscape,<br />
sometimes dotted with triangular<br />
shapes hinting at tent structures<br />
and sometimes obscured<br />
altogether. The women in these<br />
later works occupy huddled spaces,<br />
identifiable only by the Iraqi abaya<br />
draped over their bodies. Color<br />
occupies a premier place in each of<br />
these canvases as he reduces his<br />
figures to flesh-colored circles,<br />
bright rectangular bodies, and black<br />
coverings. These expressions are<br />
filled with kinetic energy. By virtue<br />
of the hurried brushstrokes and<br />
color highlights, the feminine forms<br />
seem to vibrate even as the<br />
background fades.
Al-Shaikhly exhibited his work<br />
prodigiously throughout the<br />
world. He actively participated in<br />
Baghdadi exhibitions by the<br />
Pioneers and other artist<br />
organizations in which he was a<br />
part. Thus his work was highly<br />
visible domestically.<br />
Al-Shaikhly was also a part of<br />
several group exhibitions abroad<br />
and his work was displayed<br />
in cities like Paris, London,<br />
Ankara, Belgrade, Madrid, Jakarta,<br />
and Delhi.<br />
In 1955 and 1958, al-Shaikhly's<br />
artwork toured counties like China,<br />
Russia, Bulgaria, Poland, and India.<br />
The artist's paintings were also<br />
widely appreciated in the Arab<br />
world as he exhibited in almost<br />
every Arab capital. Al-Shaikhly's<br />
works are held in the collections of<br />
Mathaf: The Arab Museum of<br />
Modern <strong>Art</strong> in Doha, Qatar and at<br />
the Jordan National Gallery of Fine<br />
<strong>Art</strong> in Amman.<br />
Exhibitions<br />
1976 Against Discrimination, Baghdad, Iraq<br />
1974 Arab Biennial, Baghdad, Iraq<br />
1958 Contemporary Iraqi <strong>Art</strong> Tour: China, Russia, Bulgaria, Poland,<br />
former Yugoslavia<br />
1955 Contemporary Iraqi <strong>Art</strong> Tour: India<br />
1954 - 1956 Al-Mansour Club, Baghdad, Iraq<br />
1953 Exhibition in Alexandria, Egypt<br />
1952 All 22 exhibitions of the Pioneers, National Museum of<br />
Modern <strong>Art</strong>, Al-Riwaq Gallery, and the Institute of Fine <strong>Art</strong>, Baghdad,<br />
Iraq<br />
_____ Exhibition in Beirut, Lebanon<br />
1946 Exhibition of the Society of the Friends of <strong>Art</strong>, Baghdad, Iraq
Shakir Hassan Al Said (1925–<br />
2004), an Iraqi painter, sculptor<br />
and writer, is considered one of<br />
Iraq's most innovative and<br />
influential artists. An artist,<br />
philosopher, art critic and art<br />
historian, he was actively involved<br />
in the formation of two important<br />
art groups that influenced the<br />
direction of post-colonial art in<br />
Iraq. He, and the art groups in<br />
which he was involved,<br />
shaped the modern Iraqi art<br />
movement and bridged the gap<br />
between modernity and heritage.<br />
His theories charted a new Arabic<br />
art aesthetic which allowed for<br />
valuations of regional art through<br />
lenses that were uniquely Arabic<br />
rather than Western.<br />
Biography<br />
Al Said was born in Samawa,<br />
Iraq; a rural area. He spent most<br />
of his adult life living and working<br />
in Bagdad.His rural upbringing<br />
was an important source of<br />
inspiration for his art and his<br />
philosophies. He wrote about his<br />
daily trek to school in the<br />
following terms:<br />
"On my way from school, I used to<br />
see scores of faces, brown faces,<br />
painful and toiling faces. How close<br />
they were to my heart! They<br />
pressed me and I passed them<br />
again and again. They suffered and I<br />
felt their suffering. The peasants<br />
with their loose belts were pricked<br />
by thorns. They were so close to my<br />
heart!"<br />
In 1948, he received a degree in<br />
social science from the Higher<br />
Institute of Teachers in Baghdad<br />
and in 1954, a diploma in painting<br />
from the Institute of Fine <strong>Art</strong>s in<br />
Baghdad where he was taught by<br />
Jawad Saleem.He continued his<br />
studies at the École nationale<br />
supérieure des Beaux-<strong>Art</strong>s in Paris<br />
until 1959,where he was taught by<br />
Raymond Legueult.[8] During his<br />
stay in Paris, he discovered Western<br />
modern art in galleries and<br />
Sumerian art at the Louvre.After his<br />
return to Baghdad in 1959, Al Said<br />
studied the work of Yahya ibn<br />
Mahmud al-Wasiti,sufismand<br />
Mansur Al-Hallaj.He gradually<br />
abandoned figurative expressions<br />
and centered his compositions on<br />
Arabic calligraphy.<br />
19
With Jawad Saleem,<br />
he co-founded Jama'et<br />
Baghdad lil Fann al-Hadith<br />
(Baghdad Modern <strong>Art</strong> Group) in<br />
1951; one of the most unusual<br />
arts movements in the<br />
Middle East in the post–World<br />
War II,that aimed to achieve an<br />
artistic approach both modern<br />
and embracing of tradition.This<br />
specific approach was called<br />
Istilham al-turath (Seeking<br />
inspiration from tradition),<br />
considered as "the basic point of<br />
departure, to achieve through<br />
modern styles, a cultural<br />
vision".These artists were inspired<br />
by the 13th-century Baghdad<br />
School and the work of<br />
calligraphers and illustrators such<br />
as Yahya Al-Wasiti who was active<br />
in Baghdad in the 1230s. They<br />
believed that the Mongol invasion<br />
of 1258 represented a "break in<br />
the chain of pictorial Iraqi art"<br />
and wanted to recover lost<br />
traditions.After the death of<br />
Saleem in 1961, al-Said headed<br />
the group.<br />
Al Said wrote the manifesto for the<br />
Baghdad Modern <strong>Art</strong> Group and<br />
read it at the group's first<br />
exhibition in 1951. It was the<br />
first art manifesto to be published<br />
in Iraq. Scholars often consider this<br />
event to the birth of the Iraqi<br />
modern art movement.<br />
Al Said also wrote the manifesto for<br />
an art group he founded in 1971.<br />
After suffering from a spiritual<br />
crisis, the artist broke away from<br />
the Baghdad Modern <strong>Art</strong> group and<br />
formed the Al Bu'd al Wahad (or<br />
the One Dimension Group)", which<br />
was deeply infused with Al Said's<br />
theories about the place of art in<br />
nationalism.The objectives of the<br />
One Dimension Group were multidimensional<br />
and complex. At the<br />
most basic level, the group rejected<br />
two and three-two dimensional<br />
artwork in favour of a single "inner<br />
dimension". In practice, a single<br />
inner dimension was difficult to<br />
manifest because most artworks<br />
are produced on two-dimensional<br />
surfaces. At a more profound level,<br />
"one dimension" refers to<br />
"eternity". Al Said explained:<br />
"From a philosophical point of view,<br />
the One-Dimension is eternity, or<br />
an extension of the past to the time<br />
before the existence of pictorial<br />
surface; to the non-surface.
Our consciousness of the world is a<br />
relative presence. It is our selfexistence<br />
while our absence is our<br />
eternal presence."<br />
Al Said actively searched for<br />
relationships between time and<br />
space; and for a visual language<br />
that would connect Iraq's deep art<br />
traditions with modern art<br />
methods and materials. The<br />
incorporation of callij (calligraphy)<br />
letters into modern artworks was<br />
an important aspect of this. The<br />
letter became part of Al Said's<br />
transition from figurative art to<br />
abstract art. Arabic calligraphy<br />
was charged with intellectual and<br />
esoteric Sufi meaning, in that it<br />
was an explicit reference to a<br />
Medieval theology where letters<br />
were seen as primordial signifiers<br />
and manipulators of the cosmos.<br />
This group was part of a broader<br />
Islamic art movement that<br />
emerged independently across<br />
North Africa and parts of Asia in the<br />
1950s and known as the hurufiyah<br />
art movement. Hurufiyah refers to<br />
the attempt by artists to combine<br />
traditional art forms, notably<br />
calligraphy as a graphic element<br />
within a contemporary<br />
artwork.Hurufiyah artists rejected<br />
Western art concepts, and instead<br />
searched for a new visual languages<br />
that reflected their own culture and<br />
heritage. These artists successfully<br />
transformed calligraphy into a<br />
modern aesthetic, which was both<br />
contemporary and indigenous.<br />
Al Said, used his writing, lectures<br />
and his involvement in various art<br />
groups to shape the direction of<br />
the modern Iraqi art movement<br />
and bridged the gap between<br />
modernity and heritage.In so doing,<br />
Al Said "charted a new Arabo-<br />
Islamic art aesthetic, and thus<br />
initiated a possible alternative for<br />
art valuating for local and regional<br />
art other than those allowed<br />
through an exclusionary Western<br />
canon of art history."
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