Buried alive with aesthetic conventions and societal convictions

Indo-Persian book painting, or Mughal Miniature painting in popular art history narratives, illustrates the accompanying text. Historically, chronicles, fairy tales, epics and romances inspired the creative geniuses to animate the characters and situations into complex theatrical compositions in terms of paintings. But then some paintings stimulate the literary instincts of its readers compelling them to write poetry of love and veneration.

Munibah Nooreseher creates such paintings. Her works are so lyrical that they appear to be the visual manifestation of some rubayi of Omar Khayyam had he been a mathematician-painter and not just a mathematician-poet. The works in the recent series Zinda Dargore displayed recently in Lahore are the epitome of South Asian artistic legacy as it reaches the height of sophistication during the Mughal period. Nooreseher’s works embody the disposition of this era with fanciful setting, exquisite colour palette, balanced composition and close attention to detail.

On a deeper encounter, the line stands out as a strong element in her compositions as it invites the viewer to enter the realm of fantasy-like reality. The free-flowing line defines the female figure as the protagonist of the story and with equal ease and calculated rhythmic intervention this line fuses into the background marking the supporting actors, trees and mountains. Slowly and carefully, the artist reveals the reality - the darkness, the inner demons, ghosts, lost and forgotten souls and other obscurities that she leaves for the viewer to imagine as she paints the background in mysterious charcoal gray adding a mystical viewpoint to the overall visual anecdote.

Trained in Ustaad Bashir’s studio at the National College of Arts, Lahore, Nooreseher indeed lives the legacy of great masters of the Mughal atelier. Ustaad Bashir groomed artists who are contributing fairly in the global art scene. He adopted the typical South Asian pedagogy of one-to-one interaction between ustaad and shagird and relied on oral transmission of knowledge in a farshi setting where his students from different academic levels could benefit from each other’s learning experiences.

Nooreseher shared this space with eminent artists like Shahzia Sikandar, Imran Qureshi, Ambreen Butt, Nusra Latif and the list goes on. While others deconstructed the constituents of traditional Mughal miniature and reconstructed the facets following the post-modern inclinations of neo-miniature movement, Nooreseher remains faithful to age-old conventions of book art. The sise of the painting, preparation of the surface, colour application, and compartmentalisation of the visual and physical space of the Wasli into hashiya, jidwal and main picture space are reminiscence of a later Akbar or Jehangir period. However, the stylisation of form remains mostly Persian and so does the playful use of camouflaging the figures in the landscape as boulders that surprises the viewer as sweet little treats. The more recent addition to her practice is the fascinating illumination and adorning paisleys within the borders. Paisley motif resembling a bent Cyprus tree is a symbol of strength and resilience. To her, the teardrop form also boosts the overall tone of grief and sadness.

The Zinda Dargore paintings are broadly consistent with the narrative of pathos within female figures. One wonders where they come from and what ails them? The intense expression of distress and tormented bodies question their mere existence and presence in the world around them. Are they even alive or have they already melted away in the anguish of time? The artist claims the paintings as biographical. There is in this series a depiction of all the despair in a woman’s life and all the luxury of communicating the bleakness that surrounds her as a human being regardless of any societal affiliation or geographical marking.

From this point of view, the experiential quality of the artworks and the universal appeal extends to the parameters of feminist aesthetics – the will of a resilient woman to embrace and exhibit reality most beautifully and profoundly. Another important feature of Nooreseher’s practice is the passionate use of Urdu expressions as the titles of works. The titles add to the prevailing note of deep and settled melancholy and leave no room for the viewer to have an independent, cheerful message rather provide a more definite description of the works. This preoccupation with a personal narrative is understandable and is justified through her long absence from the mainstream art world. Women in our part of the world are raised with the idea of ‘family first and career follows’. To some it's a privilege available only to Eastern women, to others it’s an obstruction capitulated by a patriarchal mindset. In our artist’s case, it’s the quest for a complete self. Marriage migration, the excitement of being a lover, the delight of experiencing motherhood and the duty of being a homemaker refrained a distinction holder and winner of the prestigious Haji Sharif Award from showing her works to a larger audience for over twenty years. The long break proved to be a blessing in disguise for Nooreseher as she could concentrate on an inward journey of discovering the self and life itself without the pressures of sharing the findings with anyone.

Free from the strains of the commercial art market or following the rut to fit in the matrix of post-9/11 politics of artmaking and image production these works provide a chance to probe into the latent creative practices of South Asia. At the same time, they exemplify the subtle transition of the documentative and illustrative character of miniature painting into hyperactive polemics. Today, when arguments are won based on noise and not logic Nooreseher quietly yet persuasively shares her opinion on the plight of women merely by disrupting the traditionally accepted docile and decorative representation of female figures in miniature painting and in our society at large.

The works were displayed at Haam Gallery, Lahore between May 19 and May 25, 2023.

Sadia Pasha Kamran is a Lahore based academic and published scholar with a focus on decolonising art history for global audience. All facts and information are the sole responsibility of the author