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December 2002
Princes Wijdan Ali - Journey Through Art
By Louis Ibrahim Star staff writer
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.
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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