Female figure has always been in the limelight in the works of artists and authors, who commented on the society, collective Psyche and behavioral changes through gradual evaluation of centuries. First in Subcontinent and subsequently in Pakistan, due to great influence of Hindu Mythology women have been depicted either as goddesses or witches, in accordance to their relationship to the class they abode in.
In Pakistan, Art & Literature depicted woman as the tragic icon. In 1947, during cruel process of genocide she became the target of violence, all this changed the concept of her personality, and during each freedom movement she had to endure all the consequences.
In Art, Ustad Allah Baksh, in his mystic, supernatural and metaphysical paintings like Talism-e-Hoshruba, portrayed women as angels, fairies or witches. Afterwards under the mixed influence of Art and Literary movements, Realism, Romanticism, Expressionism, Impressionism, Symbolism, Cubism, and Humanism, woman became the symbol of glamour and sensuality. Shakir Ali's abstract approach towards nature and beauty made his treatment of presenting female figure simple but very rangy, both in terms of apparent sketch as well as the inner meanings. The sharp edges of his brush presented the balance and beauty of figure, influenced by distortions, felt and absorbed. Whereas Sadeqain explored this enchanting manifesto through his "Pen N' Ink" technique while presenting nudes with all the essential details, even of less beautiful or non beautiful parts of female figure, but it is hard to find any character in those drawings on the contrary to Sadeqain's male figure based paintings and drawings.
Later Iqbal Hussain portrayed her, sitting in the posture full of elegance, romanticism and temptation. In Saeed Akhtar's work we find a woman with elegant and snobbish look. Rahat depicted her with soft touch of innocence. Collin David and Jamil Naqsh focused on the centuries old tradition in art "THE NUDES", which was a dare step in society like Pakistan where it was not acceptable openly. Collin David explored the female figure as the symbol of beauty and presented 'woman as woman' with all her subtlety and femininity, while Naqsh was a bit ambiguous in his approach, adopted a hazy expression that was, due to its un clear expression, more sensuous.
On the other hand just after partition Saadat Hassan Manto, Asmat Chugtai, Bano Qudsia, and Qurat-ul-Ain Haider presented her as victim of sexual assault and violence. In Bano Qudsia's work we find woman's struggle and internal conflict, how she survives in the social setup. Hajra Masroor and Khadija Mastoor highlighted the problems faced by middle class woman, injustice and inequity faced by ordinary woman, encroachment upon their rights. Different shades of her personality conveyed through 'stream of consciousness' technique by Qurat_ul_Ain Haider. In the work of above mentioned writers and artists, we become familiar with the emotional and sentimental picture of traditional female figure, her confrontation with society, changes in behavior due to unequal socioeconomic status.
In Parveen Shakir's poetry we find a subtle image of woman with all feminine emotions and qualities. All these painters and writers tried to lay a foundation and give a direction to their successors. Female figure being a strong character in different ways, in a society gives birth to new dimensions in Art and Literature.
I want to disclose the hidden realities and socio-economic, emotional and psychological facts that caused writers and painters to capture feminist values.
In our society the role of women is essential in all cultural and social activities, none of our rituals is complete without female character, folk songs are sung and expressed by women, moreover, she is expressed through her dance.
The little innocent daughter or younger sister is an epitome of affection, love and care, while the young girl of our society is to remain modest and noble in all means, so she is the center of all concerns by her parents and this concern, in our society is the cause of many traditional subjects of our art and literature. Young woman's body has been described in detail even in our mystic poetry as Waris Shah in his narrative piece of poetry (Heer) did. While the painters and sculptors found the female shape and contours, the universal phenomena to understand and express the real sense of beauty, apart from that external value, the sentiments of a women, being a tender character in our society, always have attraction to feel, observe and express, so, the outer shape as a figure and the inner quality as a character always inspired artists and writers to ponder on a women, even more than needed.
The bridal activities start from woman and end on her as well as she is the center of attraction in this festival, while the groom is a silent figure who just has to sit idle in all the activities, his mother, sisters and afterwards his wife's sisters and friends are active in all the rituals connecting to a wedding ceremony. Being the most wanted and awaited ceremony in our folk culture, and the only platform for folk women to express their artistic qualities, wedding becomes a vital source of cultural information regarding women character.
Same is the case in funeral procession in our society, male are responsible just to burry the dead body accordingly while female characters as mother, sister, daughter and wife are the core characters to enhance the element of sorrow and pain through a dare, open and above board expression of mourning. In our art, it is not very obvious but the grief and sorrow has been painted through female portraits without any detail of circumstances while literature has got its very base for mourning songs (Marsia) through women's voice. The pain of dear departed as son, brother or husband is always depicted in literature through women's expression and feelings. Moreover, all the rituals regarding deaths directly influence female of our society like widow has to go through (Iddat) after the death of her husband, avoid color clothes in connection with century old Hindu tradition that has influenced our society a lot.
My proposal basically reaches out to reveal social, economical, cultural, and ritual factors and reasons that make our female figure and character prominent and its influence on our society. This research will discuss and disclose the restraints and barriers those are in common practice in society but broken through art and literature regarding women. The research will go a long way into the roots of our concepts that are pruned by religion, ethics, myths, media and education through a process of century old evaluation and the shape we are into, in twenty first century. It will also enable us to analyze our status in the modern multi-culture or global culture scenario.
Painter, Sculptor, Photographer, Researcher and Poet.
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