Do you know about the attraction of Landscape painting in Pakistan? The fringy mountains block the view in many canvases painted in NWFP and Baluchistan, many calm blues embraces blazing yellows; the land of five rivers with many shades of countless colors are the marvellous scenes to take a photo.
After the partition, Khalid Iqbal with his vanishing deep perspective of subdued tinges, made the coarse surface of stretched canvas to enfold the green and dusty areas of this soil without any discrimination.
His very talented student, Zulqarnain Haider carried on this tradition of capturing the disposition of soil, and diverse tones of clear blue or cloud-laden sky.
As the climatic differences between our terra firma and of the impressionistically painted Europe, was at poles apart, there was no other way, but to arrange our own palette according to our own visual requirements.
This is what exactly these gentlemen did by actually laying the foundation stone of 'landscape painting school' in Lahore, which later spread regardless of any geographical entity to the other beautiful parts of dear homeland.
Another name in this 'green palette' of Pakistan was painted in more than green color; Ghulam Rasul who with his verticality in general and a hint of abstract handling of color, with green mostly in command, fortified this tradition of landscape painting.
As Khalid Iqbal tought at NCA and Zulqarnain Hyder at Fine Art Department of the Punjab University; two vital institutes of visual arts facing each other at the Mall, a prototype style evolved as a solid tradition and penetrated to the younger lot of their students, gradually but very effectively. Though, Ustad Allah Bukhs, as predecessor, had shown unyielding commitment towards landscape backgrounds in many of his pastoral life paintings, but they were not categorized as pure landscapes frames.
At Royat Gallery Lahore, Mirza Matloob Baig put on display a variety of flamboyantly painted frames, almost 40 in number, to take oath in the hands of great masters of this genre, and for the evergreen tradition of landscape painting.
Despite the fact that reflections always capture viewer's eye, but are not easy to paint as precision, accuracy, depth and swirling forms are challenges for an artist that make him embezzled. Matloob in one of his large size frame, painted in acrylic and titled as 'Off the Road', accepted this challenge by implying a combination of all necessary features, pivotal in obtaining accurate and dazzling results connected to reflection painting. The detailed foreground was captivating as well as textured, but the tiny vehicle (a tractor), painted at the right side of the canvas and going into the depth towards masterly rendered clouds, was not a worth adding attempt as far as visual balance went. Other than that aspect, the whole frame was an expression of skill, observation and convolution, the artist exploited to the full extent by unveiling his adroit and precious possessions through his brush.
This habit of adding something of worldly value, actually in many paintings, if not in all, disturbed the far-off look within the frames; a critical feature of landscape painting. Such an example could be the painting under the title of 'Chak 198 Khanpur-II'. As the name suggests, it was a village landscape of dusty terrain with sand and bushes creating an ambiance of the romance, associated to desert. This was a wonderful composition with foreground painted meticulously. The horizon line, as curvaceous as contours of a Yakshi, was sinuous and painterly but, two tiny female figures were infused as if it was an advertising poster and could not be considered 'complete' without a female figure. Had there been no figure at the curvy horizon line, which itself, was more striking than those tiny ladies, the painting would have been nothing but magnum opus!
Matloob, not only concentrated on the foregrounds in his generously vivid landscapes in inspiration of Zulqarnain Haider, but also, in few of his frames, adorned backgrounds and upper portions of the casing. A canvas 'Flying Clouds' was a flat canvas at foreground, but in this painting, the painter showed his skills of creating depths through stylized rendering of clouds which, seemed going deep and high, at the same time, highlighted with a silver lining. This vertical canvas in brick-brown lower, green middle and gray upper portions, reminded the viewers of a vertical technique, often displayed by Ghulam Rasul, the landscapist of elevated perspective and fresh pigments.
Next was a wooden door, half open through a muddy wall, typical of a Punjab village home, painted again with all the skills and tonalities the artist seemed obsessed with. At the first sight, this painting was a conventional pastoral painting with no unique idea behind. But three sleepers in front of the closed door inside were putting in the artistic and conceptual value in a centrally composed vertical frame.
In a bountiful green, diagonally composed 'Village landscape', the painter used the foreground to the utmost luxury for the viewer. The flora, the reflecting water, pale muddy walls were submitting the horizontal visual depth while, nicely painted bamboos were adding up the vertical balance and the electricity wires attached to the bamboos, were serving as separators against the massiveness of the dusty sky. Here again, three hens were present almost in the center, but this time, quite in association with the natural requirements of the prospect.
Matloob, in most of his landscapes, took best advantage of the oil color technique, though acrylics had also proved result-oriented for him; however his experimental work in dry pastels was not less than anything. A frame 'Birdbath', with anatomically mastered grayish-blue pigeons, composed around a traditional pitcher of water, was an eye-catching drawing. Closely related to the ethnic culture of Walled Lahore in connection with pigeons, this pastel drawing, simple in its application, yet difficult in handling, was showing the concentration the artist had been through while capturing the fluttering birds.
If we talk about the landscape painting of mid-nineteenth century Europe, we could not leave out wheat-fields by Jean François Millet; a realist, or by the post-impressionist Vincent Van Gogh. The former was intricate and scrupulous in his technique as Courbet's Manifesto regarding realist painting was an important factor for painters of that era, before they could go for the neoclassic frame of mind. One such painting is 'The Gleaners' by Millet which whispered politely while I came across a frame titled as 'Wheat Field-II' by young Matloob.
The painter, Mirza Matloob Baig, nevertheless has been successful in presenting a panorama of beautifully arranged and skillfully painted canvases in oil color, acrylics and watercolor. But conceptuality and emotional value are what the artist should take into consideration. No doubt, skill is an important and vital factor in an artist's journey towards excellence; on the other hand, concept and thought are what, skill is acquired for!
