21 - 27 February 2002
Issue No.574
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 21 - 27 February 2002 Issue No.574 |
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Painting Palestine
In their paintings they tell stories. Amina Elbendary reads through the works of Ismail Shammout and Tamam El-Akhal at Horizon One
There is not much chance you are going to miss it. Even at the slim chance the huge banners outside elude you, you will know the moment you walk into the Horizon One gallery at the Mr and Mrs Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Museum that you are entering a sacred realm (you almost expect to find an altar centre stage). There is music, Palestinian music, playing in the background. And there are colours: greens, reds, blacks, ambers. There is art, for sure, there are paintings; big ones that almost overcrowd the gallery. But, even more overpowering, there is a nation. And it is Palestinian; you are not left to doubt or wonder.
"Ismail Shammout and Tamam El-Akhal's huge paintings seek to tell the story of the Palestinian people. At some points it feels like walking through a giant story-book." Left: Shammout's "Intifada"; right: El-Akhal's "Challenge"
Ismail Shammout's huge paintings -- their size itself is overwhelming and no longer that common -- seek to tell the story of the Palestinian people (indeed the exhibition is titled Filastin: Al-Sira wa Al-Masira, Palestine: Epic Procession, an obvious reference to the Arabic genre of sira and popular story-telling). At some points it feels like walking through a giant storybook, the viewer turning briefly into a Lilliputian. And it is the dramatic sense of the narration, exaggerated by the size, that recalls medieval European religious art. Shammout tells the story in terms that many Palestinian and Arab readers would agree with, there is little -- if any -- ambivalence. The once-upon- a-time painting is "The Spring that Was." An idyllic pastoral landscape with lush greens, (smiling) peasant women picking oranges, children listening to their grandfather telling stories by lantern light, and a circle of dancing men -- all wearing traditional Palestinian costumes. Almost trapped in the right corner of the painting is the quintessential teary-eyed Palestinian family looking back in sadness to the spring that once was. Despite the timid attempt at disclaimer in the accompanying blurb which acknowledges that, yes, mandate Palestine did have its share of tensions and uprisings (none internal, it would seem), the painter, born in 1930 in Al-Lid, cannot help the nostalgia and the yearning for "good old days."
And then the drama begins: in a series of paintings the artist chronicles the plight of the Palestinians, the forceful uprooting from their homes of the people of Al-Lid and Al-Ramla in July 1948. "Al-'Atash 'An Tariq Al-Tih (Road to Nowhere)" obviously recalls the Exodus. Human bodies lie strewn across the canvas, in a desert mountain area, obviously hot and dry, begging for water.
And different Palestinians are represented in the story: there are the refugees of the camp and there are the Palestinians of the Diaspora, occupying every possible profession in countries of the Gulf.
As we approach the modern period, the storyboard becomes more symbolic, less narrative. In "Homage to the Martyrs", for example, the canvas is almost all red, shades of red flowing like a sea of blood and melting into a carpet of roses, with five women, in white, at the side of the canvas, themselves carrying bouquets of red roses. And on the horizon is a blazing rising sun. The white dresses of these (angelic?) women are inscribed with the names of martyrs, sites of massacre.
"Fire of the Intifada" shows the rebellious young men of the uprising in action, fires blazing, bodies rising up to form a pyramid, raising a Palestinian flag. And in the background, in sepia, is an almost documentary reproduction of the historic handshake at the White House.
Shammout's final painting in this exhibition is "Dreams of Tomorrow." A woman in white, Dream? Palestine?, is seen carried (almost like a corpse, though) by masses of people. On her bodice is red needlework spelling words like "love, good, patience, tomorrow" and then names of Palestinian cities "Nablus, Jaffa, Jerusalem, Al-Khalil, Al- Nasira."
Though Tamam El-Akhal's paintings are quite distinct in style -- if not always in content -- from Ismail Shammout's, this is not simply a combined exhibition by the couple. Ismail and Tamam (repeatedly in the accompanying brochures and catalogue they are referred to by the same last name -- Ismail and Tamam Shammout) are not simply showing their paintings at the same time in the same hall. Their effort seems combined, the paintings seem in dialogue.
"Actually, when we first started this project, we wanted to paint each painting together and have both of our signatures on it," Tamam explains to the curious viewer. "But then we found out that it would take too much time -- to work on each painting so that it actually represents each and both of us, but without that being awkward in the final outcome. And then, you know, we also felt that our experiences were different, so it made more sense, it seemed more honest and sincere, for each to express this experience separately."
"Ismail is from Al-Lid and I [Tamam] come from Jaffa. Our experiences were thus very different. In 1948 when we were forced out of our homes, in Jaffa, we only had the sea to turn too: it was literally the sea before us and the enemy behind us." In her painting "Al-Iqtila' (Uprooting)" she tells the events of 28 April 1948, events she lived. There are soldiers forcing people out of homes, homes here represented in some detail in the upper right hand corner of the painting, enclosed, contained. But these homes give on directly to the open sea. At the centre of the painting, and what hits the viewer, is a big white splash of waves. And beneath it are the drowning people of Jaffa, uprooted from their homes. And on their faces you can see horror.
The expressions on these drowning Jaffans' faces are very different to those in another painting by Tamam, "Jaffa bride of the sea" (Tamam's response to Ismail's "The Spring that Was"?) where we see the same shore line, again with distinct domestic architecture, minimised in the foreground and upper left corner, with farmers picking and packing fresh oranges from the trees, and little boys swimming happily. They had a life, Tamam is telling us, a life that was uprooted by force -- suddenly.
Rocks figure prominently in El-Akhal's landscape. In one painting, an old fisherman stands by his boat and beside him the sea rocks of Jaffa. We are as steadfast as the rocks, El-Akhal seems to be saying. And indeed the old man looks back at you as steady as a rock. We -- and our rocks -- are here to stay. In another, equally symbolic work, a lone white horse stands besieged in the middle of a rocky mountainous landscape: don't abandon the horse, symbol of nobility and Arabism -- another message, here directed obviously to sister Arab states. And finally, her finale, "The Challenge": olive trees, obstinately digging their roots in the rocks and blooming.
The artists both use the same size of canvas: 200X165cms. "We needed that much space to be able to deal with the events," she says. The couple visited Palestine in September 1997 for the first time since their exile in 1948. "And the visit gave us each an overwhelming emotional charge that we wanted to express through this project. We've always been painting about Palestine, but this is different. It took us four years to accomplish this one."
The Shammouts' is obviously art that is meant to tell a story for a purpose. Both painters are promoting a certain image of their nation. And indeed, these paintings are meant for the future Museum of Palestine, Tamam says earnestly, going on about the fundraising for the project, the plot of land designated for it in Abu Dis, Jerusalem (what museum? has she not watched news bulletins in a year, the gallery goer was inadvertently thinking to herself and it seems the thought jumped out somehow and made itself felt).
"How old are you, anyway?" she asked suddenly though patiently. "You look very young." She knows, she has been through the story, you see, she knows there will be a museum. And she for one is getting ready for it.
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