In the initial years after Pakistan's independence in 1947, most art depicted Mughal courtly traditions, romantic folk images and illustrations of poetry. Since 1970s and 1980s, artists in Pakistan have widened the scope of their vision and work.
Contemporary work deals in multiple spheres, often using historical and cultural references. Some of the artists display their responses to political issues, social problems, human rights and international injustices. While other artists focus on social issues such as women's status, environment, poverty and hunger, others focus on issues of spirituality, aesthetics and the natural world.
But a few of the artists has taken up struggle for independence and the personalities involve during the process as the subject of their paintings. The story of Pakistan, its struggle and its achievement, is the very story of great human ideals, struggling to survive in the face of great odds and difficulties. Pakistan came into existence with horrible loss of life and property, communal riots with millions of Muslim refugees pouring in from India, and many crises that threatened to overwhelm the newly formed state.
Jimmy Engineer one of the great philanthropist artists of our country whose passion of life is the welfare of human kind, in his much celebrated series of paintings based on the theme of the 1947 holocaust depicts the sufferings, bloodshed and sacrifices faced by the people of the sub-continent at the birth of Pakistan. It is amazing that Jimmy Engineer had no knowledge of the trauma of partition as he was born in 1957 at Loralai, Balochistan. But his Pakistan Independence series make everyone believe that he was part of the partition holocaust. The series include murals as he had also been trained as a muralist at the NCA. It is indeed a great effort intended to capture the history in images for the coming generations to ponder and demonstrate the same courage and desire for sacrifice and dedication to the country.
His Pakistan Independence series of paintings on the theme of the great migration of the Muslims in the sub-continent in 1947 truly depicts the human miseries and tragic moments speaking loudly the sacrifices and struggle made by the millions of Muslims and hard earned independence. This series was aimed at our coming generation so that they should get aware of its past.
During his long career of over thirty five years Jimmy creates a painting world with passion, translating human conditions and miserable souls into coloured imagery. His paintings are truly a mix of sentimental statements and emotions recorded on canvas. The minute details and bold brush strokes along with fine lines work show his command on his work.
Mirza Sajjad Hussain is another artist who chose national personalities to make their portraits. He is one of the top most artists in this medium. He had the gift of concentration; each of his works is a masterpiece of human expression and bears the stamp of his unique style of execution and colour use.
Most of the portraits he made are of national luminaries and therefore have a historic importance of their own. His portrait paintings of Shah Latif, Waris Shah, Allama Iqbal, Nazrul Islam, Tagore, Voltaire, Mark Twain, Shakespeare, Goethe, Virgil, Homer Kali Das, Mutanabbi, Rumi, Hafiz, Ghalib, Khushal Khan Khatak, Tolostoy and Quaid-e-Azam ave bring much more fame to him.
Professor Sajjad Hussain was greatly interested in the personality of Quaid-e-Azam and had painted more than a dozen portraits of him now scattered throughout Pakistan in different institutions. Mirza strongly believed that face is the mirror of oneself and went on painting faces, capturing the essence of the internal and external characteristics of various personalities. Thus, his portraits give out not only the person, but his time.
Mirza Sajjad Hussain has genuinely contributed in raising the level of portrait painting to highly refined and specialised art. He painted portraits for full 70 years till his death at the age of 87 years. There are no other artists with such a vast experience today that can parallel his quality of portrait work.
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