14 - 20 June 2001
Issue No.538
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 14 - 20 June 2001 Issue No.538 |
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Plain talk
Last week I was watching the cinematic masterpiece Omar El-Mukhtar, a film dealing with the Libyan national resistance against the incredibly brutal and inhumane Italian colonialist rule. The film, based on historical facts, is uncompromising in the manner in which it illustrates to the viewer the barbarism of this rule, which included the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the rape of young girls and women, the execution of men in front of their families, the hanging of freedom fighters before the public -- and other atrocities.
Watching the film, though, also acted to unlock a different set of memories. My mind turned to the time, many years ago, when I was sent to Italy to sign an Italian-Egyptian cultural agreement. The Italian Foreign Ministry kindly organised a number of guided tours for the Egyptian delegation through the immensely rich art labyrinths of Rome and Florence. All present, I can safely say, were enthralled by the great works of art that we saw not only in museums but in the cities' piazzas and on the streets.
On my return to Egypt, I browsed through the quantities of quite beautiful art books which the Italian officials had presented to the delegation members. I read about how the Renaissance was born in Italy, and then spread to other parts of Europe. A revival in humanism was one of the great manifestations of the Renaissance, and one of its features was an increasing emphasis on the dignity of man -- something of which Italian soldiers under the command of Graziani in Libya made a mockery.
How, I thought while watching Omar El-Mukhtar, can one possibly reconcile this absolute brutality with the works of painters like Masaccio, Botticelli, Fra Angelico, Leonardo Da Vinci, Raphael and Titian? How can the atrocities committed by the Italians in Libya go hand in hand with the majestic works of sculptors like Donatello and Verrochio -- the latter was for a time Leonardo's teacher -- works that were to embody a new conception of the nobility of man? I can still see before my mind's eye Raphael's great work The School of Athens and Michelangelo's masterpieces in the Sistine Chapel. Can these great artists, I asked myself, together with the likes of Dante, Boccaccio and Verdi, somehow overshadow the ugly face of Italian colonialism?
The Italians are certainly not the only nation to have encompassed what appear to be the opposing features of beauty and bestiality. Indeed, the Moguls might be cited as another example of the coexistence of these two seeming opposites within the same culture. I was reminded of them while reading an article describing a current exhibition in London of Mogul treasures from the private collection of a Kuwaiti prince. The description of the objects wrought in gold, silver and precious stones on show made them almost impossible to visualise, such is the delicacy of the workmanship involved.
Again, we have a contradiction that is difficult to explain. The Mogul (or Mughal) dynasty was founded in 1526 by Babur, a descendent of Tamerlane, one of the sons of the infamous, terrible Genghis Khan. The barbaric acts of the invading Mogul armies and the chaos they left behind them as they progressed from their Mongol heartlands are well known and documented in a plethora of history books. What is less known is the art they produced, which reached its apogee in India, where they ruled for centuries: exquisite glassware, gold work, jewellery and carpets. Most influential of all, though, was their painting, their book illustrations and miniatures. The subjects treated were mostly secular, consisting of historical works and Persian and Indian literature. It is a well known fact that western artists, including the likes of Rembrandt, saw and made copies of Mogul paintings.
I do not know how one can reconcile these glaring contradictions. Perhaps this is a question for psychologists to answer.
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