Amos Oz and his daughter Fania Oz-Salzberger state in Jews and Words: “In Jewish tradition every reader is a proof-reader, every student a critic, and every writer, including the author of the universe, begs a great many questions”.

This observation reminds one of French philosophers and cultural theorists, particularly Roland Barthes, who described “writer” as “scribe”, and “language which speaks [itself], not the author”. The implication being that a text is complete once it is accessed by a reader. Each new contact with a book, either by a different person or the same individual, alters the text. Thus, in a sense the reader is also the author.

In traditional societies, boundaries between the maker, viewer, user, collector, and commentator of art are to an extent blurred. Often you find great works of art produced as artefacts, without naming the creator. Artists signed not with their own names but as “pupil of their masters”. Jamil Naqsh signed as “the student of Haji Sharif” in his early miniature paintings.

In music, conventionally, an artiste’s identity is linked to a specific school or gharana. So, along with the subject, the context of art-making — technique, teacher, tradition — is also a part of art. This has a parallel in the 20^th century — post-modernity, where process is the production, medium the message.

In contemporary literature, theatre, cinema, and visual arts, art is more important than any other theme. Hence there are novels with writers as protagonists, films on films, theatre in which the reality of being on stage blends with script. In short, art is about art.

Naveed Sadiq seems to follow this course in his solo exhibition Kajal (December 20-30, 2019 at ‘O’ Art Space in Lahore).

Sadiq studied miniature painting at NCA (2002-2006), before acquiring his MA from the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts, London (2017). At both institutions, he was exposed to conventional aspects of miniature painting, but what he has produced now is different from his contemporaries.

To describe his works as ‘modernising miniature’ would be lazy and simplistic. A majority of miniature graduates from art schools across the country follow a formula — flat backgrounds, minimal figurative elements, naturalistic treatment, abstract imagery — to prepare ‘contemporary miniature’ for consumers in and outside the country. Add to it an element of violence and political content, and the concoction is available and bought everywhere.

Sadiq on the contrary has sought a separate solution. His recent work offers a different approach: his miniatures deal with the art of miniature. It refers to tools, techniques and teachers of this traditional art form. Even if not with a critical stance, it does investigate the history and formal features of this genre.

A major part of his exhibition includes paintings portraying three important teachers of miniature who taught at the NCA — Haji Mohammad Sharif, Sheikh Shuja Ullah and Bashir Ahmed. The former two belonged to traditional families of painters associated with patrons, and learnt this art from their forefathers. The third studied art academically at NCA. He was a student of two masters and taught generations of artists. Hence all three earned the title ‘ustad’.

Following the custom of court painters, Sadiq has depicted miniature maestros, painting his teacher Ustad Bashir Ahmed several times. In these works, his memory of interaction and observation — the Ustad sitting cross-legged and absorbed in painting with materials scattered around — is honest, convincing and creative. Apart from the identity of his subject, the flow of line, the play of brush mark and the ease in distributing/defining tones distinguish these drawings. The use of brush and ink, the sensitive and minimal rendering of contours and light and dark reflect the Chinese style of painting. An art form in which it is hard, almost impossible, to segregate painting from drawing, and drawing from calligraphy, since all are executed with the same ink and brush.

In his show, Sadiq alludes to this connection which was part of the aesthetics of miniature paintings for centuries. Not only line drawings and tonal preference, but some pictorial attributes too travelled from one region to others. For instance, Chinese swirling clouds became part of Indian paintings.

Naveed Sadiq in his diptych Siah Qalam indicates this link by painting two brushes, Chinese and Indian, in black using natural pigments on handmade wasli paper. Placing the two brushes on a paper that has a grid drawn on it, looks like mapping the tools — a feeling that is reinforced by a neutral, almost mechanical, manner of execution.

Apart from the highly controlled depiction of these tools, which represent two civilisations/societies, the titles also add another layer to this diptych. Both panels are named Siah Qalam, literally meaning black pen (in our culture, a paint brush is called pen by popular painters; and in Persian it is Muo-Qalam meaning hairy pen). Siah Qalam is also a traditional technique of Indian miniature painting of monochromatic rendering.

The act of painting these Siah Qalam(s) with a brush laden with dark ink reveals a post-modernist approach, an intertextual position, of self-referential imagery — in which art exists within the premises of art. This framework brings to mind a series of works by Ayaz Jokhio in which the image of a pencil, crayon, pastel or a charcoal stick is made in its respective medium.

In a post-modern sense, Sadiq’s other works on display also signify different dimensions of art-making, particularly the technique of miniature painting. A pestle and mortar for powdering natural resources, glass bottles to collect pigments, stone or minerals in jars, leaves, seeds, natural gum, and other organic substances used for attaining paint are all there. These are meticulously drawn. Material is juxtaposed with method, and in some paintings added with brick structure, terracotta dish, stove and other pots to prepare paint for traditional painting.

The delight in depicting these details does not stop here as Sadiq introduces geometry in his visuals. In a set of works titled Underlying Grid, one is perplexed about the relationship between items associated with preparing paint and the web of geometric shapes. Latent geometry in classical miniature is symbolic. But it seems that is not intended by the artist here; on the other hand, his paintings that are rather direct, honest and lightly-loaded appear more poetic and pertinent.

Naveed Sadiq’s approach — to focus on the process of miniature making — is crucial and contemporary. It echoes British artist Dr David Cranswick quoted by Sadiq in his statement, “The artist does not create, he participates in the Creation.”

The author is an art critic based in Lahore