LEONARDO DA VINCI AND M.A. RAHMAN CHUGHTAI
MONA LISA AND CHARM OF THE EAST

It is more about hype

A long time back I entered the National Art Gallery in Washington DC and there was a Mona Lisa version discovered and added to the gallery. Good. I saw the original Mona Lisa in Paris and read about the Isleworth version. I even looked at the skull of the woman supposed to be from Mona Lisa’s grave and felt perturbed by looking at the skeletal remains of the famous lady. Yes, Leonardo da Vinci was great artist, great man, great engineer. Everything, yes, we believe it. We love him too. But at some time or the other you see whether it is the Art that matters or the hype created by the West of its own artists. Yes Mona Lisa is great painting, but there are thousands of other great paintings in the world. So at times so much talk looks like charade of the people in control.

Now take M.A. Rahman Chughtai. The female figures of the artist are phenomenal. They are a Style all their own. Dubbed as the CHUGHTAI STYLE or CHUGHTAI ART, they are different from whatever created before, or afterwards. In 1924 the famous painting Charm of the East (first version) was bought by the Prince of Wales Museum in Bombay, after returning from England at the great Wembley’s exhibition. We will present its image too soon. But later versions of the same CHARM OF THE EAST were undertaken. It too has many attributes. It has its own value. It can be compared to anything.

The West wants to live on a cloud but when it rains, they come to the ground too. Islam has offered to the world aesthetics which will take the West millennium to know or to copy. That is a fact. So enjoy CHARM OF THE EAST by M.A. Rahman Chughtai, It is Art of the East. It is Art of M.A. Rahman Chughtai. It is the Mona Lisa of the East and there are no skulls to discover here. It is all from imagination, just Art for Art Sake.