TOTAL FAILURE OF MANY PAKISTANIS TO ANALYZE ART;
AND TAKE IT SERIOUSLY: WORK ITSELF IS A SIGNATURE.
EVOLUTION OF SIGNATURES OF M.A. RAHMAN CHUGHTAI:

Any painting can be understood on many levels. Chughtai Sahib understood this well. That is why he did not cultivate patience for those viewing his art, but could recognize their ineptitude. In letters to Chughtai Sahib, and his brother Abdullah Chaghtai, Dr Allama Iqbal requested books on Indian Art for him to study and understand same. One may be surprised to know that even in his writings, he eulogized Dr Iqbal, but always added that he had no aptitude to study painting. Indeed a bold statement for even that time. The lament of Dr Iqbal was the obsession of Indian artists with the female body. The answer to same was the making of the painting “Story teller” (a white peacock looking at Taj Mahal) which the artist left at the house of the poet and the poet hung in his bedroom for some time. The peacock stimulated Dr Iqbal to compose a poem on Taj Mahal at night. The work resulted in the poem. The first version was sold in Bombay in 1920s, but was portrayed in “Rabindranath Tagore’s Golden Book of Tagore”. We have it for analysis, and three versions were made.

An example can be studied of the painting “Last Supper” by Leonardo Da Vinci. Critics of exceptional observation have found more than twenty three hidden symbols in the work, reflecting the hidden view of the artist on the same subject. Pick up any video and hear the arguments of critics on the subject. Show it to any Pakistani and he would not know what to assert about it. In past many decades we have read and listened to so called scholars writing about their views on Chughtai Art. Aslam Ansari writes about Amal i Chughtai in terms that Chughtai would have slapped his poorest observation.  The so called messiah of Pakistan’s brazen scholarship Anis Nagi made fun of the Murraqa paintings and Ghalib poetry. At time we will quote it and tear it apart. These people had absolutely no aptitude for looking at art. In 1931 the influential art magazine “The Artist, London”, simply wrote:

“The European student can learn much from this remarkable economy of means and materials.”

And then one of the greatest western art critic like Roger Fry replied to Chughtai Sahib:

“When I look at the book with its faultless reproductions and its sumptuous decorative, I realize what enthusiasm and devotion has upheld you in your great effort. I feel that whilst I cannot hope to express my gratitude to you fully, I can do something towards it by asking you to accept one of my own works. It is a small thing but it may serve to remind you of my gratitude.

When I call to mind the works of sime much appreciated contemporary illustrators I can recognize in your work the promise of considerable success., Believe me with great gratitude.”

A thousand examples  are possible, but Leonardo da Vinci’s Last supper is best. One must view this:

A painting is like a signature. The artist M.A. Rahman Chughtai wanted every work of his to speak his identity. That is why he refrained from signing his works. He would say I make things in a way that even a blind person can see it is mine. But when works went for publication, or buyers insisted on signatures, he would do so. But always the signature is in red on the painting itself, more Chughtai Lahore, or Abdur Rahman Chughtai Lahore. Rarely other colour. Sometimes complete at times less.But the line is always recognizable.And to top it all, at times the signatures are not even his own. For that reason we will discuss elsewhere and not in any premature way. It requires more room for analysis. Suffice to say that a Chughtais work is Chughtais by analysis. Such subtle things clerical staff and so called experts have no capacity to understand the personality of a Master of his times and beyond. It is my job to bare the ineptitude of these so-called experts, confusing the world with ideas that they have no capacity to infer without adequate research. And nor do they make any effort to discover same. I am the greatest living authority on Chughtai Art, and my motto is not merely to preserve and promote, but to research on same. We welcome the world on their way to the discovery of the Modern Master of Muslim Civilization.