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Pakistani artist recreates Renaissance art




An exhibition of the works of Pakistani artist, Irfan Hasan, who continues the tradition of miniature painting of the Persian and Mughal Empires, will open this month at the Grosvenor Gallery in London. It will be his first solo exhibition in England, but unfortunately he will not be able to attend. He was denied a visa by the British High Commission in Pakistan.

Hasan follows the tradition of Lahore artist, Shazia Sikander, who revived the techniques of miniature painting. Hasan uses this style to introduce the dimension of opaque watercolour painting from Persian art, called GudRung (Dawn, October 24, 2015).

In his series of paintings called ‘After’ Hasan’s figures are from Western renaissance and neo-classical artists such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Peter Paul Rubens, William Adolphe Bouguereau, and Anthony van Dyck. His themes depict ‘human flesh, power, dramatic emotions, and aggressive masculinity along with signs of love, beauty, passion, eroticism, and death.’ The article summarizes Hasan’s technique as ‘mastering the art of juxtaposing traditional motifs and contemporary ideas to bridge the gap between the stylistic differences of Eastern and Western art.

Hasan had held three exhibitions in the past year – in Europe and the United States. Due to the limited number of art galleries and museums in Pakistan, artists in Pakistan get more exposure internationally.

Photographs are from the Dawn article.

Photo of Irfan Hasan by Zaheer Abbas


http://images.dawn.com/news/1174102/recreating-rembrandt-a-new-dimension-of-pakistani-art
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