A celebration of the artist and his work

And a must-read for every art aficionado

Ijaz ul Hassan’s immense body of work in various genres spread over five decades mirrors not only his own country’s maturing saga but is also a reflection of his life and times. His art bears the imprints of many foreign artists and aesthetic movements, and like any truly original mind he too has his different creative phases based on the peculiar political and social circumstances and the changing reality of nature around him.

It requires a sensitive spirit and a sympathetic eye to capture on canvas the fleeting moments of truth and beauty that escape the vast herd which looks but does not see. Ijaz’s unbending commitment to the truth, whether in the world of men or in the realm of nature, is the most vital component of his huge body of work, apart from his inner conviction and innate compassion for humanity.

All these qualities along with his special powers of creativity endow his productions with a universal appeal, and in that respect they are a heritage of the whole world.

‘Ijaz-ul-Hassan: Five Decades of Paintings’ is a celebration of the man and his work, and indeed does justice to the foremost amongst the living painters of this nascent nation. The magnum opus produced by Mian Ijaz’s spouse, Musarrat Hasan – in her own right an acknowledged leading painter and art academician – is 298 pages of pure visual and reading delight for all,regardless of whether one is an art aficionado or not. The appendix details the 252 paintings and sketches, some of them given a whole page while others, especially the panels have been spread over two pages. This not just puts on display a very large part of the artist’s oeuvre but also quite graphically displays how prolific the artist has been.

In her foreword, Dr Barbara Schmitz opines: “The phases of the artistic career of Ijaz ul Hassan, as clearly presented in this book, demonstrate the great extra gained by an orderly contextual analysis of the artist’s life and work.”

The tastefully designed and published volume takes us through the author’s journey spread over 50 years by someone who has shared all these years with the man, and is intimately, instinctively aware of the mood and inspiration behind each of his paintings. This enhances the value of this nine-chapter volume for the ordinary reader, which also includes an exhaustive appendix.

Ijaz’s unbending commitment to the truth, whether in the world of men or in the realm of nature, is the most vital component of his huge body of work, apart from his inner conviction and innate compassion for humanity.

This is a must-read for every budding artist and a delightful addition to one’s private library, provided one can afford the rather prohibitive price of Rs 5000/-, although one must hastily and truthfully add, that it is still value for money. Still, the lengthwise size of the book could have been enlarged to ensure the maximum impact of the paintings on the viewer; this would also have helped enhance the extremely small font size of the otherwise extremely well written text.

Nevertheless, this is a comprehensive history of Pakistan art and the socio-economic scene as interpreted by the artist. It should adorn libraries and private collections, and should no doubt be a big hit with the foreign watchers of the Pakistan art scene.

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Excerpts

“Looking at the artistic production of Ijaz ul Hassan as a whole, one will realize that after an apprenticeship period, in which Ijaz experimented with several styles popular with Lahore artists in the 1950s, and possibly beginning during his years at Cambridge in the early 1960s, and later continuing during his incarceration in the Naukhar jail in 1970-l, Ijaz found a theme that was to remain with him throughout the rest of his career – the fight against repression or containment of the human spirit. This he presents in what may be called overt and passive modes. Both types of paintings appear throughout his years as an artist, a fact not clearly recognized by critics and students until the publication of this monograph; now one clearly sees that the ‘political paintings’ do not end in the 1970s but were simmering in the artist’s tool box all the while, reappearing as a loud cry with the execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, for example…

“On the other hand, most of Ijaz ul Hassan’s nature paintings have no overt metaphoric meaning (other than perhaps their titles). They are simply bright clear paintings extolling the artist’s love of nature. They are most aptly represented in the several versions of the majestic laburnum tree, covered with cones of yellow blooms in early summer along streets of Lahore… “However, the best of Ijaz’s paintings – those that most clearly illustrate his activist themes – occupy an important place in the modern art of Pakistan.”

Dr. Barbara Schmitz,

Foreword

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Introduction

“Ijaz in the past was criticised for stepping out of line with the conventional tenets of modernism. The art establishment found his work of early 1970s hard to digest for their large media based images and social comments, because it was totally opposed to their concept of ‘art for art’s sake’. Twenty years later the art world woke up to the merit of these paintings and realized in the eighties and nineties, that nothing of this kind had been done before. But now, when he painted the much admired landscapes and murals based on nature, he was criticised for moving away from his art of ideas and social commentary.

This is a comprehensive history of Pakistan art and the socio-economic scene as interpreted by the artist. It should adorn libraries and private collections, and should no doubt be a big hit with the foreign watchers of the Pakistan art scene.

“To understand the painter Ijaz and his work one must embark on a logical and chronological journey that spans the different periods of his life. From the tentative but charming small paintings of the fifties to the meticulously worked still life of the sixties. From the aesthetic exploration of colour, simplest flat forms and surfaces to an affair with what he regarded as a ‘vivaciously disarming street art’. The effort opened up unforeseen possibilities for him. “Venturing out beyond the nest of pure colour and form he was engaged by new challenges that face Pakistan and the Third World. His works of the early 1970s boldly comments and conveys without hesitation crucial events and significant political ideas of the time.

“The 1980s, period of the second long martial law, was a period of withdrawal when he refrained from his explicit expression and adopted metaphors, images and other suggestive devices in order to express himself. It is during this period that Ijaz discovered the innate flamboyance and sheer joy of painting expansive canvases focusing on elements of nature that express hope and survival, and emphasize her regenerative power and unwavering persistence to strive and grow. The fire and resistance of his earlier expressions thus gave way to an oft repeated message of beauty, hope and optimism.”

–Musarrat Hasan

‘Ijaz-ul-Hassan: Five Decades of Paintings’

Publisher: Lahore Art Gallery,

42-Lawrence Road, Lahore

Sole distributor: Readings, Lahore.

Pages: 298; Price: Rs5,000/-