Art history: ‘Miniatures were misunderstood’

Nadeem Omar says colonial education system premised on obliteration of indigenous knowledge.

LAHORE:

National College of Arts (NCA) Rawalpindi Director Nadeem Omar said on Sunday that miniature painting had been long considered a repetitive and unimaginative art.

He was giving a talk organised by the Trust for History and Architecture Pakistan (THAAP) on the history of miniature painting in the nation. Omar said practitioners of the art such as Haji Sharif had often been shunned for not being innovative. He said Abdul Rehman Chughtai was the only renowned miniature artist. Omar said this was due to his western outlook and approach to the art.  He said Sharif had contributed in equal measure to miniature painting in the subcontinent.

Omar said Chughtai’s work had made historical styles more accessible and Sharif’s was feted for his mastery of skills and techniques. He said Sharif had been seen as an artisan and not an artist due to this.

Omar said it was because of this perception that Sharif had not been acknowledged in a manner befitting his stature even after the establishment of the National College of Arts.  He said Sharif had died in obscurity 10 years after his plea for permanent employment at the college was turned down in 1969.

Omar said Shazia Sikander had made a pivotal contribution to reviving miniature painting by showing that the craft could be used as a medium of self expression. He said that her work had been appreciated as it was coded in a language that was sustained by a myth of authenticity. Omar said this had been derived from copying motifs and symbols used in miniatures from the Mughal era.

He said those who had dismissed Sharif’s work as repetitive had failed to realise that the repetition of motifs in his work represented the creation of a citation, a code that could only be deciphered and modernised after its meaning and context had been fathomed. Omar said popular understanding of miniatures was limited to seeing them as individual pieces.

He said miniatures were not meant to be read like that. Omar said miniatures had historically been a part of larger manuscripts in which the paintings were accompanied by text. He said a large number of these had been lost due to ignorance and rapine rife in the twilight years of the Mughal Empire.

Omar said the education system in the nation was premised on the obliteration and suspension of indigenous knowledge as awareness regarding pre-British society was severely limited.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 2rd, 2015.