Picasso in Pakistan
By: Peerzada Salman
KARACHI: What do you do when you do not know how to introduce a person for whom adjectives have been exhausted by his admirers and critics alike? That person does not require an introduction. His very name conjures up an image that has a universal appeal.
Anyone who is not even remotely interested in art would be familiar with someone by the name of Pablo Picasso.
The artist himself has become the very definition of art. It is but natural that art lovers have been visiting the Gandhara Art Gallery where an exhibition of prints by Picasso titled ‘Picasso in Pakistan’ is under way.
‘Le Deux Femmes Nues’ (lithograph on arches wove paper) is an exceptional work of art. It does not matter who the artist’s subject is (someone he lived with or adored etc) because the magic lies in the stern face of the woman and the gesture that hints at an apparently blasé attitude to life.
In other pieces the artist plays with the same face and body equations. The eyes of one of the models that he makes are prominently elliptical. Their shape gels well with the rest of the body marked by pronounced contours. In one exhibit, the face of the woman looks a bit reticent, but the rest of the body belies the facial expression and is livelier than the countenance. In another artwork the master plays a trick and creates an image where the body of the characters merges into its own physical self.
‘Picador et Taureau’ (linocut) takes the exhibition on to a different tangent not just subject-wise but also on the level of skill. The lines in one of the two linocuts are exciting to behold. The viewer can see them moving in and out of the frame as if they went out of the control of their creator, the artist. And yet, the subject (the matadors) never goes out of sight.
The exhibition will remain open until Feb 17.
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