Syed Jhangir is at the thresh hold of seventy summers. And he has remained an active painter all his adult life. Starting form his student days , for more than a half century now, he has been selling art works and living almost entirely on the proceeds from sale of his paintings, some savings from which he also charitably spared for social investment in his native village in Satkhira.
A family man by temperament, he lovingly supports as extended family of several growing children. Also a sporting and gregarious person by nature, Syed Jhangir befriends many. He had and still has many admirers amongst the learned section.
Blessed with clear articulation and an elegant bearing, Jhangir has also been often sought after for presentation of new on TV and for events on stage. While a budding artist immersed in the search for self-identity, Jhangir developed lively communion and lasting bondage with other creative individuals in the literary and cultural circles including the undersigned. While in Islamabad, he set up a cooperative art gallery that marketed art-works from Bangladesh. Back home. He became director of fine arts in Bangladesh Shilpakala academy and developed fifteen years to the promotion of Bangladeshi painting and sculptures, particularly through organization Asian Art Biennials, Bangladesh.
Syed Jhangir continues to be a brilliant water colorist his highly transparent water color landscapes of rural Bangladesh are worked in the vein of maestro Zainul Abedin, his teacher and guide in nature studies. Later he developed a style of line brushing of penning in ink the back ground sketches of landscapes, particularly hilly terrain like Chittagong hill tracts or Murree hills, along with colors washes to highlight the character of the objects in view. This probably led to the development, during the decade, of structured water color compositions of thematic landscaping using selective memory or imagination. Disturbing images of flood disasters have lent his water colors subdued expression, brevity of rhetoric and sublime transparency. These are considered the most characteristics creations of Syed Jhangir.
In oil paintings, Jahangir has painstakingly gone through various phases or experimentation both in abstract representation of visual reality and in formalized expressions of aesthetic experience. He had early exposure to action painting in the US before this better acquaintance with formal, analytical or synthetic conceptions of multidimensional appeal in modern European paintings. Perhaps that exposure inspired him in some phases of his experimental work to resort to relative informality in subjective or objective expressionism, with spurts of spontaneity in emotive brushstrokes, figurative rhythm or simple color connotations, of late he has reverted to story telling in his compositions in semi abstract or symbolic configurations.
Apart from that summary appraisal of Jahangir’s works as I have witnessed them in various phases, I am tempted to draw a pen picture of Jahangir through the words of connoisseurs who pronounced a different kind of empathy with his creativity.
Asauddowlah a former civil servant and noted singer, found Jahangir less of a ‘Thematic painter’ that a “Faithful chronicler” of the painter’s mindscape through the journey of life. He wrote: “Syed Jhangir’s stages of development have been faithfully supervised by time. In his instance the artist and the time have not betrayed one another. The stages are inseparably related to both life and time frames. The spell of the traditional school and the struggle for liberty and self-identity that followed the significance of the language movement in his consciousness, the period of pure romanticism, the conflict for finding himself are all perceptible in his works.”
Masud ahmed. Career diplomat later turned environmentalist, looked through the prism of jahangirs experimentation with techniques marking the beginning of a timeless voyage of joyous exploration. This came about as Syed Jhangir boldly preserved in what would seem to many , a perilous exploration of the creative possibilities to its precipitous and awesome limits. The risk was great: the stark possibilities of a total breakdown induced by the sheer dizzying magnitude of the task. The outcome is uninhibited celebration of life’s infinitely varied manifestations, shape, space, density, light and color, vibrantly glowing on the scores of work done…
Painter Hamidir Rahman a pioneer of modern art in Bangladesh and also the architect of Shahid Minar, found in the oil paintings of Jahangir “…. A vague indefinable search for new vistas, without the eagerness or the urgency to reach anywhere. Her the riot of forms is over, thoughts have no particular motifs to serve, colors have no longer any set place to stick to, even lines have no set purpose to achieve. What a world that would be, the artist wonders taking shelter behind the world of almost nothingness. The whole process is a process of expedition and exploration, leaving behind some imprints of the artist while he was covering the track, and there it is!” Hamidur Rahman had further comments about characteristics luminosity in Jahangir’s compositions: “Syed Jhangir’s brushing has a feathery quality from which emanates a strong luminous vibration. The handling of pigments and forms are atmospheric in character. Divisions of planes are geometric with some use of free shapes and there is an air of dreaminess which does so characteristically remind one of Jahangir’s own romantic demeanor.”
Hasnat abdul hye, acclaimed novelist, penned the following as introduction to the latest works of Syed Jhanagir, “Sustatined pace of creativity over a long period has made his painting very much a part of his daily routine where art imitates life spontaneously. To her his views, the line separating art and the world he lives in is a thin one, most of the paintings being reflections of the ideas or themes thrown up by the contemporary socio- cultural milieu or surrounding nature. It is this underpinning of ideas of ideology of creativity, if one might call it so, that distinguishes Jahangir’s works, giving them an unmistakable imprimatur of his persona and is without doubt the well spring of his astonishingly continuous activity. At first sight, many of his paintings in the abstract and semi abstract genres will belie this ideological [proclivity. But a careful scrutiny of otherwise aesthetically pleasing forms and compositions developed by bright colors in free wheeling motions eschewing rigidity of structure reveals theirs inner meanings suffused with the restlessness of a searching soul. It then becomes evident that Syed Jhanghir’s quest is not for beauty alone but also designed to endanger hope for the harried heat and redemption for the anguished soul. As an artist he perceives his role not only as a purveyor of beauty in plastic art but also as a messenger of life in its mundane and mystical manifestations. This commitment to ideas makes his paintings both contemporaneous and timeless.”
There is hardly anything more that needs to be added to complete the graph of Syed Jhangir’s creative impact on his contemporaries.
Mindscapes of Syed Jhangir
Syed Jhangir is at the thresh hold of seventy summers. And he has remained an active painter all his adult life. Starting form his student days , for more than a half century now, he has been selling art works and living almost entirely on the proceeds from sale of his paintings, some savings from which he also charitably spared for social investment in his native village in Satkhira.
A family man by temperament, he lovingly supports as extended family of several growing children. Also a sporting and gregarious person by nature, Syed Jhangir befriends many. He had and still has many admirers amongst the learned section.
Blessed with clear articulation and an elegant bearing, Jhangir has also been often sought after for presentation of new on TV and for events on stage. While a budding artist immersed in the search for self-identity, Jhangir developed lively communion and lasting bondage with other creative individuals in the literary and cultural circles including the undersigned. While in Islamabad, he set up a cooperative art gallery that marketed art-works from Bangladesh. Back home. He became director of fine arts in Bangladesh Shilpakala academy and developed fifteen years to the promotion of Bangladeshi painting and sculptures, particularly through organization Asian Art Biennials, Bangladesh.
Syed Jhangir continues to be a brilliant water colorist his highly transparent water color landscapes of rural Bangladesh are worked in the vein of maestro Zainul Abedin, his teacher and guide in nature studies. Later he developed a style of line brushing of penning in ink the back ground sketches of landscapes, particularly hilly terrain like Chittagong hill tracts or Murree hills, along with colors washes to highlight the character of the objects in view. This probably led to the development, during the decade, of structured water color compositions of thematic landscaping using selective memory or imagination. Disturbing images of flood disasters have lent his water colors subdued expression, brevity of rhetoric and sublime transparency. These are considered the most characteristics creations of Syed Jhangir.
In oil paintings, Jahangir has painstakingly gone through various phases or experimentation both in abstract representation of visual reality and in formalized expressions of aesthetic experience. He had early exposure to action painting in the US before this better acquaintance with formal, analytical or synthetic conceptions of multidimensional appeal in modern European paintings. Perhaps that exposure inspired him in some phases of his experimental work to resort to relative informality in subjective or objective expressionism, with spurts of spontaneity in emotive brushstrokes, figurative rhythm or simple color connotations, of late he has reverted to story telling in his compositions in semi abstract or symbolic configurations.
Apart from that summary appraisal of Jahangir’s works as I have witnessed them in various phases, I am tempted to draw a pen picture of Jahangir through the words of connoisseurs who pronounced a different kind of empathy with his creativity.
Asauddowlah a former civil servant and noted singer, found Jahangir less of a ‘Thematic painter’ that a “Faithful chronicler” of the painter’s mindscape through the journey of life. He wrote: “Syed Jhangir’s stages of development have been faithfully supervised by time. In his instance the artist and the time have not betrayed one another. The stages are inseparably related to both life and time frames. The spell of the traditional school and the struggle for liberty and self-identity that followed the significance of the language movement in his consciousness, the period of pure romanticism, the conflict for finding himself are all perceptible in his works.”
Masud ahmed. Career diplomat later turned environmentalist, looked through the prism of jahangirs experimentation with techniques marking the beginning of a timeless voyage of joyous exploration. This came about as Syed Jhangir boldly preserved in what would seem to many , a perilous exploration of the creative possibilities to its precipitous and awesome limits. The risk was great: the stark possibilities of a total breakdown induced by the sheer dizzying magnitude of the task. The outcome is uninhibited celebration of life’s infinitely varied manifestations, shape, space, density, light and color, vibrantly glowing on the scores of work done…
Time, Compromise, Defeat
Passion, Life, Texture, Shape
Sunset, Clouds, Fragrance
Color, Violence
Soul, Love-feelings…”
Painter Hamidir Rahman a pioneer of modern art in Bangladesh and also the architect of Shahid Minar, found in the oil paintings of Jahangir “…. A vague indefinable search for new vistas, without the eagerness or the urgency to reach anywhere. Her the riot of forms is over, thoughts have no particular motifs to serve, colors have no longer any set place to stick to, even lines have no set purpose to achieve. What a world that would be, the artist wonders taking shelter behind the world of almost nothingness. The whole process is a process of expedition and exploration, leaving behind some imprints of the artist while he was covering the track, and there it is!” Hamidur Rahman had further comments about characteristics luminosity in Jahangir’s compositions: “Syed Jhangir’s brushing has a feathery quality from which emanates a strong luminous vibration. The handling of pigments and forms are atmospheric in character. Divisions of planes are geometric with some use of free shapes and there is an air of dreaminess which does so characteristically remind one of Jahangir’s own romantic demeanor.”
Hasnat abdul hye, acclaimed novelist, penned the following as introduction to the latest works of Syed Jhanagir, “Sustatined pace of creativity over a long period has made his painting very much a part of his daily routine where art imitates life spontaneously. To her his views, the line separating art and the world he lives in is a thin one, most of the paintings being reflections of the ideas or themes thrown up by the contemporary socio- cultural milieu or surrounding nature. It is this underpinning of ideas of ideology of creativity, if one might call it so, that distinguishes Jahangir’s works, giving them an unmistakable imprimatur of his persona and is without doubt the well spring of his astonishingly continuous activity. At first sight, many of his paintings in the abstract and semi abstract genres will belie this ideological [proclivity. But a careful scrutiny of otherwise aesthetically pleasing forms and compositions developed by bright colors in free wheeling motions eschewing rigidity of structure reveals theirs inner meanings suffused with the restlessness of a searching soul. It then becomes evident that Syed Jhanghir’s quest is not for beauty alone but also designed to endanger hope for the harried heat and redemption for the anguished soul. As an artist he perceives his role not only as a purveyor of beauty in plastic art but also as a messenger of life in its mundane and mystical manifestations. This commitment to ideas makes his paintings both contemporaneous and timeless.”
There is hardly anything more that needs to be added to complete the graph of Syed Jhangir’s creative impact on his contemporaries.
Sadeq Khan
April 2002
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