Naveed Aman Khan
MAQBOOL Ahmad Tariq an amazing genius is Pakistani artiste of his own ride based in London. In his childhood he has been drawing masterpieces on the floor and the walls with coal and chalk because he didn’t have any drawing copy or drawing board. His elderly sister was sick of Tariq’s art work on the walls and the floors because she had to clean the floors daily. One day when he was drawing on the floor his senior sister beat him with her shoe. When his father came to know the reason he took Tariq to the stationary shop to present him drawing pencils, papers and board. This encouraged him a lot. In the school he had been very popular because of his artistic capabilities. The genius Maqbool wrote his first book on art when he was just 7th class student. His school teachers supported him and his art book got published and included in the curriculum of grade 8. Surprise to all when the next year he was promoted to grade 8 he had his art book in his Curriculum. In the entire world there is no precedent other than this. In grade 8 the genius student has been reading his own authored book. Unbelievable. Unmatched. His second art book again was published during his school days. He wrote a wonderful and unique book on different kinds of butterflies.
Maqbool believes that art is a diverse range of human activities in creating visual, auditory or performing artefacts, expressing the author’s imaginative, conceptual ideas, or technical skill, intended to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power. Painting, sculpture, architecture and drawing are classical branches of visual art. The nature of art and related concepts, such as creativity and interpretation, are explored in a branch of philosophy known as aesthetics. Art can connote a sense of trained ability or mastery of a medium. He says that art can also simply refer to the developed and efficient use of a language to convey meaning with immediacy or depth. Art can be defined as an act of expressing feelings, thoughts and observations.
There is an understanding that is reached with the material as a result of handling it which facilitates one’s thought process. His common view is that the epithet “art”, particular in its elevated sense, requires a certain level of creative expertise by the artiste, whether this be a demonstration of technical ability, an originality in stylistic approach, or a combination of these two. Traditionally skill of execution was viewed as a quality inseparable from art and thus necessary for its success; for Leonardo da Vinci, art, neither more nor less than his other endeavours, was a manifestation of skill. Rembrandt’s work, now praised for its ephemeral virtues, was most admired by his contemporaries for its virtuosity. At the turn of the 20th Century, the adroit performances of John Singer Sargent were alternately admired and viewed with skepticism for their manual fluency, yet at nearly the same time the artiste who would become the era’s most recognized and peripatetic iconoclast, Pablo Picasso, was completing a traditional academic training at which he excelled.
Maqbool’s art has always been acknowledged and admired in Europe and Great Britain. Unfortunately, governments of Pakistan and Pakistani society don’t acknowledge such great individuals. These great individuals are true picture of our country. A common contemporary criticism of some modern art occurs along the lines of objecting to the apparent lack of skill or ability required in the production of the artistic object. In conceptual art, Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain” is among the first examples of pieces wherein the artiste used found objects and exercised no traditionally recognised set of skills. Tracey Emin’s ‘My Bed’, or Damien Hirst’s ‘The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living’ follows this example and also manipulates the mass media. Emin slept in her bed before placing the result in a gallery as work of art. According to him Hirest came up with the conceptual design for the artwork but has left most of the eventual creation of many works to employed artisans. Hirst’s celebrity is founded entirely on his ability to produce shocking concepts.
The actual production in many conceptual and contemporary works of art is a matter of assembly of found objects. However, there are many modernist and contemporary artistes who continue to excel in the skills of drawing and painting and in creating hands-on works of art. Maqbool is an optimist. He is proud of high class Pakistani talent and art work. Undoubtedly he is very popular artiste in Great Britain and Europe. Almost every other day he is interviewed in the media. He is true ambassador of Pakistan. Because of his talent, artwork and meritorious services he should be bestowed national level award. Maqbool should be acknowledged at our national level. He is pride of Pakistan.
—The writer is book ambassador, columnist, political analyst and author of several books based in United Kingdom.
