When Bangladeshi art came into its own in the fifties, a group of young artists introduced new concerns and became passionately committed to the task of raising the standard of their creative output. They were stirred by the exciting developments in western art and aesthetics. Their efforts gained in passionate intensity in the sixties. During this decade art and literature in this country underwent varied development. Nihilism, angst, sorrow, loathing, cynicism were reflected in the works of many. The intelligentsia was engaged in vigorous deliberations on the question of national identity and took an active interest in various movements. The impact of these events on art and letters intensified.

Abstract epressionism was vigorously pursued by artists at this time. The avant garde of the fifties had already exploited this artistic mode to create a new wave on the art scene. They captured the pain and anguish, hopes and aspirations evident in our society through abstract and semi-abstract compositions. The leading lights of this trend were Muhammad Kibria and Aminul Islam.

Mahmudul Haque belongs to the generation that followed immediately after. The sixties had an indirect influence on his sensibility. As a consequence, his art has been enlivened by awareness of our national identity. Nature and the beauty of traditional Bengali culture have been fused into unity by his creative inspiration. Since his student days he has been exploring the varied facets of nature through both abstract and semi-abstract compositions. From the earliest phase his works have been characterized by emotional sensitivity. From the sixties and seventies onwards he has dedicated himself consistently to his art. He has worked regularly and has always experimented with new techniques.
In the present exhibition, titled “Dance of Life on the Horizon,” at the Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts, Mahmudul’s unwavering artistic commitment has attained a new significance. His confident handling in an abstract manner of subjects drawn from nature is brilliantly reflected in the works displayed in this show. He has portrayed scenes from nature in diverse combinations.

We are all aware that Mahmudul was in one phase heavily influenced by his teacher, Muhammad Kibria. Kibria is an intensely introspective painter. His work as an abstractionist has revitalized the nation’s art in terms of its emotional appeal and formal qualities, and has also provoked argument.

Kibria’s influence on Mahmudul Haque is quite obvious. But Mahmudul eventually managed to strike out on his own and create his own niche in the art world. Nature, which dominated his work at the beginning, gave way to pure abstraction in oils from the eighties and nineties. Higher training abroad greatly enriched his mental world. He visited different museums in Europe and America. The great works of the Renaissance and later periods that he saw aroused new questions in his mind. That is why he has been consistently trying to evolve a personal stylistic stamp. Foreign training guided his creative endeavour into new channels. He began working tirelessly to attain mastery over oil painting and graphic art. He has broken up forms to create a new kind of perspective. The work has become more varied and rich in suggestiveness. Though the Romantic imagination holds sway over him, he cannot be called fanciful. In his paintings as well as his prints, his composition and also his use of colour have produced an emotionally satisfying world amidst the deft decorative touches. Thus his continuous efforts have produced a distinctive idiom that assures him a respectable place in the contemporary art world.

Mahmudul loves to spend time chatting with friends. How he still manages to put in the hard work demanded by his vocation is a wonder. We are impressed by the way he has broadened the horizons of art through his mastery over perspective.

In the 40 acrylic and oil paintings in this show, Mahmudul Haque the nature lover has revealed his feelings in the form of meditations on beauty. He has attempted to project the emotions evoked in him by nature, the sky, the horizon, like an enchanted nature lover. He has in these paintings subjected his experience of nature to a deeper and more extensive search for forms and images. The landscape stretching away to the horizon, and the sky, together with other attractive subjects, have been captured in his works. The horizon that is both familiar and unfamiliar, and the attempts to transform it, will naturally interest connoisseurs. We believe that the latter will also know themselves better as a result of encountering Mahmudul’s art.

Mahmudul’s work has gained in significance for a variety of causes. Compared to previous exhibitions, the works in this one are more suggestive. While maintaining the balance between colour, form and composition, he has tried out various experiments. He has not allowed himself to be restricted by any set of conventions. He has done away with boundaries, something not seen in his work before. Consequently, the sky or the horizon’s line has created an atmosphere of fullness. The pictures have almost gained the clarity of crystal. At the same time the subjects have been handled sensuously so as to generate a strong emotional aura. Red, yellow and earth colours have been used to bring out nature’s beauty in all its vividness. Mahmudul has tidied up his earlier techniques while breaking forms to infuse a fresh emotional charge into the paintings in this show. He has tried to bring profound thought to bear on the known world. The artist in conversation has expressed the hope that art lovers will find their own thoughts regarding the known world becoming enriched through the engagement with his paintings. He has used the colours associated with dusk to highlight the distinctiveness of Bengal’s landscape. In the past he had also dealt with rain in a series of paintings. He experimented extensively to find ways of capturing images of rain-washed loveliness. Later, he experimented widely with colour in order to be able to satisfactorily achieve artistic transmutation. Mahmudul’s efforts to reveal nature’s hidden beauty have taken him in a new direction. It is rare to see an artist work so copiously in oil with nature as the subject. The exhibition amply reveals the depth of Mahmudul’s love for nature.

Mahmudul’s richness of colour and composition has rendered nature expressive; on the other hand, his use of colour may inspire nature mysticism. Each painting possesses a distinctive temper and reveals a unique spirit, thus creating a special harmony.

The sky, nature, and the horizon have many layers, and diverse manifestations. They undergo transmutation with a change in one’s emotional state. But capturing this in paintings is a formidable task. Mahmudul Haque has succeeded in doing so in a number of paintings in this show.

The style of painting Mahmudul Haque has specialized in is one of the prominent ones in our art world, and is part of a brilliant tradition. We are convinced that this exhibition of his will come to be regarded as a significant milestone in the history of contemporary Bangladeshi art.

Mahmud Al Zaman