he Supreme Court of the United States of America has declared in a recent ruling that “Andy Warhol infringed on Lynn Goldsmith’s copyright when, in 1984, he used her photograph of the pop star Prince as the source image for a series of silk-screen portraits.” Reacting to the decision, Richard Meyer, the art historian from Stanford University, has expounded on the question of originality, and explained that Warhol “was concerned not with copyright but with the right to copy.

Ingenuity, inspiration, replication and fair use are matters of debate in the legal circles. These concepts are also major concerns in the realm of art. How much can a creative person appropriate from an existing work and what are the parameters of authenticity? For example, if a carver in Swat is making a true copy of a Buddhist sculpture, why should the latter version be called a fake, but the historic pieces produced two thousand years ago regarded genuine? The fact is that the art of Gandhara, by its very nature, was not pure; it was a blend of Indian and Greek aesthetics, in which a number of facsimiles of a sculpture were prepared.

Museums in Pakistan and India, as well as around the world, have many superb specimens of Buddhist statuary, but those on display and in storage (and in private houses), one imagines, are not unique images. Like other traditional cultures, the standard practice in the subcontinent was to reproduce an earlier example, in a perfect version, or with a slight variation. No questions, no quarrels, no court cases about the copyright, because the conventional societies understood that a single person cannot possibly be the author of such a creation. Observation, influences, exposure to other works, people, histories and ideas contribute in shaping a new piece. A latter worker adds to previous works. This is best illustrated in the structure of qawwali. A composition devised by Hazrat Amir Khusrau (1253-1325) is performed by a range of qawwals, including Munshi Razi-ud Din, Sabri Brothers, Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and Abu Muhammad and Farid Ayaz, each improvising on the original, while turning it into their signature creations.

In that sense, a resident of today’s Taxila duplicating an ancient sculpture in the same stone, at the same location – and perhaps employing similar tools/ method – could claim that his work is as original as his ancestors’ centuries ago. One can argue, that the present-day statute makers are not the followers of Buddhism; but the earlier Gandhara stones may also have been carved by Hindus and Jains or some pagan devotees. India has always been a multi-religious subcontinent. One presumes that mosques and mausoleums erected by various sultans and Mughal emperors were physically built by masons, decorators, carvers, labourers belonging to several faiths. A mosque in Delhi can have columns that look like parts of Hindu temples.

History, recent or remote, can be utilised in more than one way, and every response to history is double-edged: it can venerate the past; or/ and celebrate the present sensibilities. This theme was highlighted in Khaleeq-ur Rehman’s recently concluded solo exhibition, Stories in Stone (June 3–11, Lahore Museum), which comprised his carvings in various materials and work on paper. His sculptures were displayed at the Gandhara Gallery – close to his source of inspiration.

Art and archaeological museums have been engaging artists to interact with their collections and produce work; or display their art in a historical museum, providing a new context, both for the contemporary work and for the permanent collection. Frank Auerbach, Ken Kiff and Paula Rego were invited by the National Gallery, London, as associate artists to study past works – on the walls and from the vaults - and create new pieces that corresponded to them. Bringing a contemporary artist’s work and installing it next to historic exhibits is to initiate a dialogue between time and space. Like Rashid Rana’s exhibition, Perpetual Paradox, at the Museum Guimet, Paris (2010), and Risham Syed’s solo exhibition at the Manchester Art Gallery (2017-18).

The exhibition by Khaleeq-ur Rehman at Lahore Museum does not fall into those categories, but it comes close. Rehman has been infatuated with the art of Taxila, chiselling his sculpture in the stone not dissimilar, in spirit, to those found at the archaeological sites. His art has been shown at various venues, including Zahoor-ul Akhlaq Gallery, NCA, (2015); Nairang Art Gallery, Lahore (2010); Goethe Institute, Lahore (1994); and Multan Arts Council (1988). The list establishes the seriousness, persistence and purposefulness of a person trained as a medical doctor (served at Mayo Hospital in the late ’90s) and currently working as a professor of urology at Fatima Memorial Hospital College of Medicine and Dentistry, Lahore.

One is not sure about details of Dr Khaleeq-ur Rehman’s career path but doctors are know to be carvers of human body. They dig deep to find the illness (X-rays, CTC scans, MRI, Doppler’s tests); open up the flesh and stitch it later; or examine body parts, pulse, limbs, in order to diagnose and treat. In medical studies, anatomy is a mandatory discipline. So the body, dead or alive, healthy or ailing, is the main subject for a doctor.

In the historic art of Gandhara, the body was the most prominent feature –not a stylised entity – but a mass in anatomical detail. The body – not necessarily human, seems to be the preoccupation in Dr Rehman’s free-standing and relief sculptures, next to their archaic ancestors gazing from the glazed cabinets in the Gandhara Gallery.

In his stone sculptures, Rehman shows a man’s personal vision, dedication and devotion to the distant past of Pakistan, reminding one the diverse histories of this 75-year-old nation state. Seeing these carved pieces in various materials, one ponders whether the good doctor might be romanticising the past. In some of his artworks – like Figure, Rain Dinner, Reflection of a Play, Together II and Mother & Child - the artist seems to be levitating above the dust of history. These look disconnected from their sources (Gandhara, Chawkandi and Mughal).

This course is commendable but not unique. Artists are often indebted to the past yet find their individual and distinct vocabularies like Henry Moore who looked at the African and Mexican figurines to create his magnificent modern forms (much removed from the initial sources). One feels that Khaleeq-ur Rehman is on his way to liberating his visuals. He only has to steps outside of self-imposed limits on inspiration or changes the scale of his artworks – from the manageable items sold at the curio shop, to substantial figures that possess the power to frighten, impress and lure a visitor at the ruins of Taxila and the halls of world museums.

The writer is an art critic based in Lahore.