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Journey through Art
Princes Wijdan Ali - Journey through Art
Louis Ibrahim - The Star
December
2002
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Three
Phases in four Decades" is the wonder that Her Royal Highness
Princess Wijdan Ali takes visitors through in her exhibition
at Darat Al Funun. The exhibit is more than an event of art,
it almost feels like human feelings made tangible on paper.
Princess Wijdan explained her exhibition as an overview of her
journey with art. She likes to call it a myriad of emotions.'
The exhibition presents different stages of Wijdan's style in
painting, and emphasizes the relationship between man and art.
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Her striking proficiency in Islamic
arts is very obvious in most of the paintings at the exhibition.
She highlights three main phases, which comprise the core of
her art style. These are the abstract, landscape and calligraphy.
"I have been moving between the
three styles effortlessly: sometimes working with two simultaneously,"
she said. "At times two styles would converge to become one,
such as the calligraphic and abstract styles or landscapes and
abstraction. At others, they would each emerge separately."
Each of the three phases is introduced impressively in the Darat's
three halls. She preferred in the beginning to introduce a portrait
of her mother followed by her first painting. "In 1960, I painted
my first work, with my French teacher, Alice Ladoux, and fell
in love with the painting." She said. Wijdan's memory of her
mother reflects her gratitude towards the old people, who often
nourish their children with faith and self- redemption. Throughout
her 40-year career Wijdan endured the joy and sadness of art
painting.
She remembers well how dispirited she was after the Arab defeat
in the 1967 war against Israel. However, her gloominess was
the launch pad to explore her creative skills in other form
of art, including abstraction. "Suddenly, I could no longer
use color or build up a composition with forms and lines," she
said "Thus I painted my first calligraphic works in black and
white with verses from the Qur'an forming part of the visual
and graphic composition."
Wijdan recounts later her fondness to the desert and nature
of Jordan in an impressionist like Desert Hills, Desert Rain,
Moab and Jordan Valley display the imaginative compositions
of her oil paintings, presenting nature in different angles.
"Desert is the last symbol of purity for mankind." She said.
"It is the indomitable part of this planet." Although yellow
dominates Desert Hills the different extents of the color gives
the painting depth. Wijdan chose to take a full landscape of
the desert in her painting, stretching the orange sand dunes
and hills in the background. In Desert Rain the artist wanted
to reflect the charm of the grayish wet sand in the painting.
It rather depicts the obscured desert under murky skies. Wijdan's
desert is also there in other works, featuring the harvest in
Um Al Kundam and the Desert Hills in Kutaifa. The Wadi Rum Collection,
illustrating the exalted brownish mountains along the valley,
is very memorable.
According to French art critic Francois Daulte, Wijdan seeks
to articulate her dreams and explore the mysteries of the world.
"Her canvases, mostly of large dimensions, reconcile an exacting
and rigorous technique with the most secretive poetry," he said.
Abstraction of Wijdan's compromise between the nature and calligraphy.
Alphabet is around, but colors have the dominance. Color means
a lot to her, it is the language that she constantly likes to
celebrate.
"My early abstracts were explosions of contrasting and matching
colors," she said. Abstraction is obvious in her true illustrations
of the Omani village of Nazwa and Jibran, the Turkish Istanbul
and Zeinab of Karabala in Iraq. Each of these abstracts represents
Arab localities in a genuine, strong manner.
Moving to the third phase is like roaming from one to another.
Wijdan's next feat is to present her calligraphic collections.
Alphabet and idioms were composed together with the colors in
sole compositions. Calligraphy in Wijdan's woks is special.
After her first works with calligraphy in the early 1970s, she
restored her affection to the art 15 years later when she brought
the Arabic alphabet in classical forms placing letters and words
within plastic arrangements. Such calligraphy was obvious in
her self-rendition during and after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait
in 1990. "Letter shapes were manipulated for their graph qualities
as part of the composition, in addition to their spiritual and
literary contents," she said. "The letter shapes were abstracted
and times made up landscapes and cityscapes."
Wijdan's cityscapes are what Dault called. "opening up an enchanting
universe before our eyes," Dr. Malcolm Quandrill, another art
critic, believes the artist is on the threshold of a further
period of discovery. "For Wijdan Ali, it is no longer just a
local talent," he stressed. "Her bold treatments and consistent
disdain for mere recognizable reality have now assured much
wider recognition of her works."
Born in Baghdad in 1939. Princess Wijdan holds a BA in history
from the Lebanese American University, and a PhD in contemporary
Islamic arts from London University. The princess is dean of
the University of Jordan's School of Arts and Design, and president
of the Royal Society of Fine Arts. She takes part in many exhibitions,
in Jordan and abroad. The exhibition at Darat Al Funun is her
23rd solo since 1963. It runs 19 February.
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