The art of portraits: Illustrating the creative process

Saeed Akhtar’s sketches go on display as artist launches Sketchbook.

LAHORE:

One-hundred and thirty sketches by Saeed Akhtar, one of the country’s foremost portrait artists, will go on display at Ejaz Gallery at 6 pm today as part of the launch of Sketchbook, which features 450 sketches by the artist.

Most of the works on display were made in the last three or four months and the rest less than two years ago. Akhtar said that the book was an illustration of his creative process. “Usually people see only the final painting. They do not see the pain the artist goes through to reach his destination. The creative process is very painful,” he said

Akhtar, who taught at the National College of Arts for many years, said that the book and display would be useful for young artists and people in other creative professions. “It is like those small notes that a music composer or a writer takes down before creating a melody or a novel,” he said.

Most of the sketches are portraits in charcoal, many of them full profiles rather than just sketches of the head and upper torso.

Akhtar said it was important for the portrait artist to convey a complete picture of their subject.

“Man has been painting man since the stone age. It’s evolving and all the time artists are finding new angles to paint portraits. Only painting a face is not a portrait as it does not convey the full personality of the person, and if it does not do that then it is not a real portrait. I try to understand my model’s personality, physique, posture – anything that helps me paint the portrait of that person. Everybody has a physical identity and characteristics that cannot be separated from their portraits,” he said.

Akhtar spoke of the challenge of portraying historical characters. He said when drawing the Quaid-i-Azam, he made himself think of the founder of the country as an ordinary person rather than the icon he is. “I usually talk to the person for a few days so I can make an accurate portrait. When it’s people I cannot meet I study what I can about them.”



Published in The Express Tribune, May 8^th, 2011.