Written by: Nayha Jehangir Khan
Posted on: July 03, 2020 | 
A Painting from Sadequain's Cactus Series
This year marks the 33rd death anniversary of the enigmatic, mystical and unforgettable Pakistani painter Syed Sadequain Ahmed Naqvi. Beloved and mourned by generations of contemporaries, he is known throughout the world by his first name Sadequain. The complexity of storytelling and composition of his work were central themes of the live broadcasted talk held by The Second Floor (T2F) between Shahid Rassam, Firasat Rizvi and Sultan Naqvi.
Firasat Rizvi is an author and a voice of authority for classical literature. A poet during the 70s, Rizvi shared his admiration for the fact that Sadequain extensively authored classical Rubaiyaat while simultaneously creating a monumental scale of visual art. The tradition of precisely crafting four-line stanzas that encapsulated metaphysical explorations, along with mapping philosophical commentary on life, politics, spirituality and relationships.
Part of the Sadequain Painting on the Roof of Frere Hall
The origins of this style of poetry dates to 11th-Century Iran, transcending through time and is captured in the artistic sensibilities of Sadequain in the 20th century. Although there have been English translations of the Rubaiyaat that became immensely popular in the west, the artist knew the tradition in its original Persian form. Being multilingual and fluent in Persian, he understood the anatomical weaving of words and was able to create sharp multidirectional trajectories of Urdu verses.
Much like a composer or conductor of an orchestra, he was an unapologetic wordsmith. His effortless penmanship on paper was multifaceted, where the flawless marksmanship was calligraphic and his verses were autonomous. His hierophant persona was able to transcend conventionalism, imparting the internal and autonomous reality of his life in his drawings, paintings, murals and sculptures.
Sadequain's Calligraphy
He explored language in the same way as painting, with imagery and uninhibited movements. The difficulty in writing Rubaiyaat is connecting the first two lines with the fourth, making it essential to anchor the third line with a catalyst like verse.
Sadequain's personality, according to Rizvi, had honed this skill through being able to capture metaphors phonetically, like painterly strokes on a canvas. The words felt like landscapes and colour fields that captured the attention of the listener and transported them instantly into the artist's poetry. There is a duality in his paintings and Rabaiyaat, an exploration of spirituality and dark painful experiences run parallel, often connecting physiological experiences with higher meaning beyond human existence. He called himself a faqir, Sufi and an ordinary man. Sadequain’s personality was that of an anti-hero, who did not want to market himself.
Sadequain Painting
Having spent his formative years in Karachi, Shahid Rassam is currently the Principal of Arts Council Central Institute of Arts and Craft, Pakistan. His kinship with Dr. Akbar Naqvi had deepened his understanding of Sadequain over the years. He recalled the artist being an immediate painter in a frenzy and unstoppable, being able to land bold marks, making strokes on anything in his path. He remembered that Sadequain was young when he achieved international recognition in 1963. His work was at par with western modernism of the 1920s.
He quoted the artist having said, “My paintings are not for the drawing-room but the dust bin”. Rassam explained the uniqueness of his form and the colossal volume of work that we have lost over the decades to forgery, theft and a lack of conservation of art. There are certain visual metaphors such as the human form being depicted as a cactus, that are signature Sadequain and live on in his paintings.
Credited as a credible source on Sadequain’s life and art, Syed Sultan Ahmed Naqvi is the artist’s nephew. He brought excerpts from a Herald Magazine interview of the artist, and verses from the compilation Naqvi authored called Rubaiyaat-e-Kuliyaat. Thus, he provided a context for the audience to understand Sadequain’s thought process.
Firasat Rizvi (Left) and Syed Sultan Ahmed Naqvi (Right) at T2F
Naqvi said that he had been close to his uncle, and had attended to all his personal needs. The cheerful smile on Naqvi’s face was contagious, as he expressed the passion and dedication with which Sadequain created his work. Naqvi had seen the artist paint the Mangla Mural, and explained how Sadequain planned figures as tall as 15 feet with relative ease in his mind.
A Part of the Mangla Mural
He only gave his art to those who resonated with it deeply, and never sold work, not even to Queen Farah Diba. He would instead “work for the multitude and the shards, like a traveler between two worlds.” The artist was not seeking fame or fortune, and wished for his body to be sent afloat, so that he may not take up land in the afterlife.
Sadequain was a true modernist and genuine polymath. This analytical and critical relationship he had with works of Iqbal, Ghalib and other canon poets was known to his nephew, expressed in his Rubiyaat and those who admire his paintings. We are only able to scratch the surface during this time of his deepened understanding on spiritual, artistic and transcendent philosophies elevating his status as one of the greatest painters of Pakistan.
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