Artists must feel what is happening around them,” says Dr Musarrat Hasan, a veteran painter, professor, teacher, and even a member of the Punjab Assembly. “And this is a driving force even the best artist to produce something out of the box and heart felt and to be able to relate to society at the same time.” She sits in her drawing room which is heavily decorated with art: interesting artifacts spread out on a shelf and tables, paintings both by herself and her husband Professor Ejazul Hasan are hung on the walls of this room which itself opens up with a solid wood double door engraved in beautiful Swati traditional art style. In heavy contrast to her surroundings, Dr Musarrat herself is dressed simply, in a striped off-white and cream shalwar qameez, with short ‘no-nonsense’ hair, and the rectangular wire framed glasses, giving her a quintessential professorial image.
Born in 1961, she describes her childhood and her growing up as ‘the same old, boring time’, with nothing to write home about. Her grandfather was the famous Mian Abdul Aziz Malwada, mayor of Lahore, well-known lawyer and politician as well. He was also a great friend of Dr Muhammad (Allama) Iqbal’s, and several of his friends used to gather at home for lengthy political discussions. Politics as well as intellectually stimulating discussions always hung in the air. But for Dr Musarrat art came personally at a much earlier stage in life.
“My sister had taken up Fine Arts while she was in college,” she smiles as she remembers. “This then was the window to my learning art. But I must say I had a lot to learn over a long period of time.”
She laughs heartily as she remembers that not knowing anything about the canvas or oil paints she simply set out to use her sister’s paints and began to paint a picture of an old woman. “I still remember my subject,” she remarks. “In those days the canvas did not come prepared so one had to first make a mixture of linseed oil,. Turpentine and some other ingredients and paint it over the canvas so that the oil paint would stay. But I didn’t know that and I began to paint on an unprepared canvas. Everyday I would return to see that the paints had been absorbed by the canvas and the old woman had disappeared!” Being the determined person that she had always been though, Musarrat, continued to try and try (on the same canvas) till she found out the correct way to do it.
“I belonged to a very conservative family. Young girls usually did not study further than their FA or BA. I was the only one to have completed my Masters while living with my parents,” says Dr Musarrat. “One day I went to my father and drawing my dupatta on my head – because that was the tradition – I looked down and simply said to him, “Father, I want to study.” Though he didn’t say anything at that time, after that I heard that my father had told everyone ‘my daughter will study’.”
This kind of support helped Musarrat make it to her Masters in Punjab University and she opted to specialize in a study of Fine Arts. In those days there were only two components, Studio Art and History of Fine Arts. She did both in her Masters and then took up her journey as an artist and a teacher both.
Though she has spent about most of her professional life as a teacher, Dr Musarrat completed her PhD towards her retirement age, but to her that does not matter as such. “Punjab University had lost the tradition of having people do their PhD’s since the 1960s,” she says. “I did mine in 1997, and I did it mainly to pave the way for many others who wanted to do theirs too. Today, I know that because of me beginning this tradition once again, several students are thankful, because there is not a very encouraging atmosphere for PhD there. Today about 40 students have completed their coursework,” she says seriously. “I feel good about being part of this and about helping them to find their way for studies higher than Masters levels.”
For Dr Musarrat, being a teacher is what matters most in her life, even today. “I have since my first job at Queen Mary School (and later College), tried my best to instill in my students an intelligent approach to the subject of Art. I have tried to inspire them. Even today then some students who I have taught years ago come up to me to greet me and there is no other stronger feeling of gratification than to know that you have helped shape someone.”
But today Dr Musarrat has one major concern.
“In Pakistan there is no record of art,” she says. “It is indeed a most shameful aspect that not just the students of art but also the common art lover has no idea what artists in the past have achieved, not even what their names are. They have no idea what their roots are. Preservation of art must be given importance because it is part of our culture.”
She says since partition art was recorded for about the first 10-15 years, but after that no work was done. Literature and poetry are preserved in the form of books, music in the form of electronic data, but paintings aren’t preserved. “Either they are bought by someone, or they go back to the artist’s house after an exhibition. There is hardly any recognition or importance of a National Art Gallery. Also many of the critics have a very narrow perspective of art or the artist itself,” she says.
Herself the author of about five books on various subjects of Art, Dr Musarrat says that there is another issue. An unfortunate aspect of the situation is that most of the text books on Art are in English. Students who read Urdu therefore cannot in general study Art.
“For this reason, I wrote my first book in Urdu,” she explains. It was called “Qadeem Insaniat Aur Funn-e-Mussawiri”, where Dr Musarrat with the help of some other colleagues compiled information and drawings starting from Cave Art to present. And though the paper back version is just Rs150 and the hardback about Rs250, she says she and the others are still receiving royalty because it is one of the most best selling books.
She has also written a book on famous painter Moazzam Ali, and is currently working on a book about her husband, Ejazul Hasan. Dr Musarrat has also written and compiled a book that studies paintings from the British period to partition. It is simply titled, “Painting in the Punjab Plains (1800-1947), studying about 150 years of the most important time period, because this is where the artists of Pakistan would find their roots of painting in.
Meanwhile Dr Musarrat is a painter fond of nature itself, and that is never restricted to landscapes, like many of the other artists. Inspired by anything living, she loves the mystery of each and every line in the faces of people, which helps her to understand the kind of people they are. She has painted several friends, colleagues, and family members along with many others and is an admirer of works by Iqbal Hussain, Saeed Akhtar, and Rahat Masood, all of whom excel in portrait paintings.
Her vivid colours are an inspiration from European painters and her unique style is also reminiscent of European art. She has the quality of replicating the exactness of the detail of real life with the ability to keep the art bordering on surreal in a way, with her dreamlike style of painting.
