An exhibition of some forty large paintings of Shahida Manzoor opened at the Hamail Art Gallery. The show was inaugurated by the Vice Chancellor of the Punjab University Prof. Dr. Mujahid Kamran, himself an ardent lover of paintings and fine arts. Shahida Manzoor rather Dr. Shahida Manzoor is the first ever lady to earn a Ph.D. degree in fine arts from the USA. Beside an excellent teacher with loads of knowledge she is a fine painter. Being overwhelmingly involved with teaching and supervision of several M.Phil and Ph.D scholars she has not been able to hold exhibition of her paintings for a fairly long time. Nevertheless she kept painting whenever she got time sitting in the studio of her house that is encapsulated in verdure flora of exotic nature. Her paintings reflect the same verdant character in her paintings.
Dr. Manzoor titled her painting show Anhad Nad. According to her Anhad Nad is an echo of limitless boundaries, a sound which calls for a constant process of creation. “My recent solo show is based upon Nature and its most obvious symbolic manifestations. As an artist I feel an overt and profound attraction to nature and acquire inspiration from its dynamic range of colour and form. Nature engenders unlimited spectacle of creativity and beauty through which I can glimpse beauty of Allah.”
In classical and neo-classical aesthetics, there is nothing dialectical in the relationship between art and nature, nature provides the model for artistic composition and there is, presumably, a harmonious relationship between the two. Conversely, some have suggested that in the aesthetic appreciation of nature for its pictorial or compositional values art, especially painting, is the model for aesthetics of nature. Artist explores one general type of relationship between the natural and the artifactual that manifests itself in diverse, aesthetically significant contexts. During the 14th century artists began to acknowledge nature in their work, increasingly introducing elements of the landscape as the background setting for the action of the figures in their paintings. Early in the 15th century, landscape painting was established as a genre in Europe, as a setting for human activity, often expressed in religious subjects. Illuminated manuscripts were very instrumental in the early development of landscape. The artists were especially successful in reproducing effects of light and in a natural-seeming progression from the foreground to the distant view. This was something other artists were to find difficult for a century or more, often solving the problem by showing a landscape background from an elevated station-point.
From the beginning of human history, nature has played a vital role in our creative expression. The lands and waters we rely on for daily survival shape how we view and interpret the world around us. And in turn, the art we create from nature’s inspiration becomes part of our personal and cultural identity. In China, since the earliest dynasties, artists have glorified mountains as being the manifestation of nature’s vital power “qi,” attracting rain clouds that water crops and providing medicinal herbs that cure the sick. And in France, cave paintings have been found of horses, deer and bulls dating back more than 17,000 years. And look at the animals preserved on the Indus Valley Seals. Nature’s beauty and power is ingrained in our lives, our history and our culture. By conserving nature in our artworks, we are helping nurture our artistic spirit and enduring generations will continue to find inspiration in the natural world around us. Like hundreds of artists and scientists, Dr. Manzoor has also been inspired by the natural world, particularly the flora. Her paintings immediately communicate to us the strong message how nature is part of our lives and how strongly it is associated to our sensory senses.
Stylistically Dr. Manzoor paints in a semi-abstract style. She combines organic and inorganic forms, cool and warm colours and a combination of bright and dull tones which create a sort of dynamic force in the painting. Her application of paints is not like impasto of Van Gogh albeit the force of Van Gogh’s brush- strokes is there. The boldness of pigments is there. She is fearless in applying the paints in their purest and intense form. My technique of painting can rightly be called Synchromism which comes from the Greek, meaning ‘with colous’. Synchromism in my paintings is specifically the Anhad Nad, a limitless reverberation of creativity and absolute union of colour, form and rhythm.” Synchromism was an art movement that was founded in 1912 by American artists Stanton MacDonald-Wright (1890-1973) and Morgan Russell (1886-1953). Their abstract synchromies, were based on an approach to painting that analogised colour to music, were among the first abstract paintings in American art. Though the movement was short-lived and did not attract many adherents, Synchromism became the first American avant-garde art movement to receive international attention. One of the difficulties inherent in describing Synchromism was a coherent style is connected to the fact that some Synchromist works are purely abstract while others include representational imagery. This is exactly what we observe in Dr. Manzoor’s painting.
When an artist like Dr. Manzoor is looking for inspiration for an abstract or semi-abstract painting, she changes the way to look at the world around her. She stops seeing the big picture and look for details. To look at the shapes and patterns which occur, rather than focusing on the actual artifacts of the entire physical universe, her studies are therefore amazing and absorbing. The big landscape shrinks to her canvas without sacrificing the actual spirit of nature. In the labyrinth of vigorous abstract strokes you can find a vivid message of the beauties of nature. This message is transmitted through bold brush-strokes and glowing colours. She is not afraid of using colours with their full intensity juxtaposed with their hues and tints, as we see in Ecstasy of Light or in Landscape I, Landscape II, Glorious Fall and Landscape III. Nature is more than well –represented in Togetherness and Tranquility. This exhibition showcases over forty paintings of Dr. Manzoor that drive us to a realm of art that is wholly made of the gifts of nature with colours of nature, with message of nature and with spirit of nature.