The Lebanese Artists' Exhibition

The Lebanese Ministry of Education has mounted an exhibition of Lebanese artists from Daoud Corm down to the present day. The exhibition was opened on April 15 by His Excellency the President of the Republic, Sheikh Beshara El-Khouri, in the presence of His Excellency the Prime Minister, Mr. Riad al-Solh, and His Excellency the Minister of Education, Dr. Elias El-Khoury, together with a refined elite of society's foremost people.

"The Woman's Voice" delegated the artist Mr. Abd al-Rahman al-Labban to view this splendid exhibition and to write the critique which the reader will find below:

The editorial management reserves its own opinion on what Mr. Labban's pen has treated, leaving judgment to the reader.

"A room full of paintings is a room full of feelings and ideas." Indeed; and a bare wall is much like a witless man — I cannot tell why any sensible woman keeps him!

In the West, the painting is a part of the house whose furnishing is not complete without it, and its mistress's nerves are not at rest until she sees it in its proper place. Few are the Arab women who trouble themselves over it. Most women among us wish, no doubt, to adorn their walls and rooms, but they take no care in choosing the adornment: you see them using things trivial in themselves — an old photograph of an old grandmother, or a photographic print of a country of which they know nothing, not even its name, or one of those pictures that spread so widely in the days of the last war, which it is truly regrettable for one to see on the walls of "free citizens!"

In Lebanon today there is an exhibition of certain Lebanese artists, opened by the Ministry of National Education and Fine Arts under the patronage of the First President. In this exhibition are many paintings by artists who lived among us and whom God then took to Himself, and by others who still contend with fate and dispute with society their right to survive. They are forgotten by all but a small band of friends and a few foreigners only, and they are neglected by the government — I say this in spite of this very exhibition which the government itself has mounted — neglected by it because it has not yet founded a special house for painting and sculpture, choosing for it each year the best of the paintings and statues exhibited by all the artists of Lebanon, together with such paintings as it could purchase from artists' exhibitions in the Arab countries especially and in the world at large — and let no one object on the financial side, for we know very well where the state's monies go!...

They are neglected, too, by woman herself — woman who is, I believe, the first to bear the responsibility for artistic stagnation, for she is the artists' first muse and, more important, she is their rescuer from the struggle of life and the contest for survival. If woman does not preside over the selection of paintings, presenting them to her husband and children, adorning her house with them, and cultivating with them everyone who keeps her company and sits with her — who, pray, will do it?

I ask in astonishment: is it truly the case that a huge bouquet of flowers makes a better gift, given on whatever occasion, than a work of art? Does a woman receive a piece of silk with greater and loftier emotion and feeling than she receives a colored painting when it is presented to her? If that is the truth, then I am the first to believe that the women's renaissance in the Arab countries, and in Lebanon in particular, is still missing; that all this clamor raised around the subject is talk upon talk upon talk; that the taste of woman among us, and her feeling, are still as they were in her days of ignorance, and her culture is far removed indeed from the first rung of the ladder of social and cultural advancement.

The book, the painting, and music — three necessities without which one cannot live and keep his humanity, without which he will be capable of no independence whatever should he lose them, and without which he will never know advancement — they are the very same as goodness, freedom, and beauty.

"We lose the truth of the art of painting and its purpose if we expect of it a complete transcription of things in all their detail — if we take it as nothing but a record of documentary information... What we want of a work of art is that it show us the important distinguishing qualities in things, those which can stir in us a pure artistic emotion." So says Albert Barnes in his book, which is taught at the Louvre museum. It is the best word to speak before we begin to talk of the Lebanese artists and their exhibition.

If we begin with the dead artists, we find their paintings representing an art over which time has eaten and drunk, an art which today is without doubt numbered among the dead. It is strange that these artists, who journeyed to Italy and to Europe to receive the fine arts — sculpture and painting — never once came into contact with that band of rebellious Western artists who were then contending with the world to create a frank and pure art. Stranger still, they returned to us bearing a Western art which the Westerners themselves were trying to cast off and demolish. It would be well for these paintings to be kept in a special permanent place to which the researcher may return if he wants a reference for the history of art in Lebanon — and not to be exhibited again year after year.

But I except from this collection two paintings or more that are worthy of appreciation. One of them is by the brush of Gibran (no. 127), an oil painting of a young girl seated, her chin taken in her right hand, looking at you with her dreamy, wandering eyes as though she were visiting another world, or as though the painter had wearied her, so that she fell to thinking and thinking until thought lost her in a world of fancy of the kind handed down from Gibran. The painter succeeded in neglecting most parts of the picture, which lent the face a special freshness of color and a manifest clarity of expression; thus the painting acquired a definite point of focus. The painting holds a depth of feeling and delicate, harmonious colors, as though the artist had loved his sitter and shared her fancy and her feeling.

Gibran's paintings are distinguished by their maturity and the harmony of their colors, and by subject matter which in its execution resembles the art of sculpture more than the art of painting — perhaps the result of his direct contact with Rodin and his serious interest in Blake's drawings, his subjects and his poems.

I except also some of the paintings of Makarov Fadel, which contain an attempt at liberation from the fetters of the schoolmasters — an attempt, and no more. He has a self-portrait, beautiful in execution, sincere in its expression and vitality, which makes you feel this young man's effort to slip the yoke of the classicists and their fetters.

The paintings of Khalil Saleeby are distinguished by precision of style and richness of color, but they lack a great deal in force of feeling and personality, and in the recording of the model's inner life. We do not see, for example, in the portrait of Ameen Rihani the power of thought and rebellion of soul for which the philosopher of Freike, the friend of Faisal, was famous; nor in his heads that life which appears so clearly in Farroukh's paintings. And the feeling in the portrait of his wife is very slight indeed when measured against the artists who painted the same subject — the likes of Roberts and Rembrandt, for example. (Some may object to comparing these men with our own artists, but it is the only means of appraising and evaluating art.) I do not say that Saleeby's paintings are devoid of feeling and vitality, but rather that they are weak in that respect; they doubtless surpass some of the exhibited paintings in that same vitality, and differ from certain others. I have been told that there are paintings finer and stronger than these by the same artist; for what reason their exhibition was neglected I do not know.

The paintings of Habib Srour are of precise workmanship, exact in transcription, faithful in recording nature with complete fidelity; but they stir in us no particular artistic feeling — they content themselves with stirring admiration for the capability of the work and the craftsmanship, nothing more.

If we pass to the living artists, we are struck by the great disparity we find between them — in general — and the dead artists. The living are at least alive: they try to free themselves from the past and to shake off the dominion of the domineering artists. So we find in their paintings the trace of the "Impressionist" and "Post-Impressionist" artists — the likes of Manet, Monet, and Cézanne. But it is a slight trace whose features have faded through blending with the other schools.

I cannot but begin with Farroukh, for he is in fact the eldest of the Lebanese artists and the connecting link between these and those who have departed. It is a link that is necessary, without doubt, to every successful artistic movement for which permanence and development are hoped.

He is, of the living, the most careful to preserve the precision and exactness of drawing, even if it forces him to sacrifice color. Yet he is strong, to a degree, in his psychological expression, precise in the portrayal of persons, especially the popular types who never swerve from their social struggle for life — types on whom Farroukh takes pity and whom he loves.

Farroukh is in need of depth of feeling in his choice and arrangement of colors, especially in some of his landscapes, and he fails when he attempts to execute a delicate emotional subject with the same ease with which he executes his other paintings. "My Teacher," for example (no. 86), is a very delicate, complicated subject, difficult for anyone to carry off successfully, and I believe that Farroukh failed in this attempt of his.

But without doubt he succeeded completely in his pictures of people's heads, such as "Bedouin" (no. 95), "My Master" (no. 83), "Master Mitri" (no. 87), and others. He has a watercolor portrait of the poet Ahmad al-Safi al-Najafi (no. 103), masterly in its characterization, truthful in its telling of the life and inner nature of that resentful, pessimistic wanderer — except that the colors are weak and ordinary.

Farroukh is a local realist in his subjects, wholly faithful to this realism of his — and to his "localness."

As for Douaihy, he is enamored of bright, gay colors, which he scatters through his paintings broadcast, succeeding at times and failing at times. Among his successful paintings is "Around the Fire" (no. 73), where the colors are in complete harmony and the execution is simple, fully expressive of the artist's feeling toward these two ordinary talkers — and "A Village Woman Knitting Wool" (no. 52), "Ain Sir" (no. 67), "A Young Girl" (no. 55), and "Interior of the Lebanese House" (no. 54).

This artist is moved by the play of lights and shadows — a merry play, most like the spirit of an innocent child laughing at its games. Painting no. 52 is distinguished by the unity and simplicity of its subject (one of Douaihy's characteristic traits), and by the artist's attempt to convey to us the delicate, sincere feeling he experiences before these lights strewn over the whole canvas and those light, transparent shadows that steal in here and there, creating an atmosphere of balance that rests the nerves and delights the soul.

But Douaihy failed in some of his subjects, such as the paintings representing the cedars in the snow, and a few others. It is as though Douaihy at times tries to please the general public and to entertain it; and in this he loses much of his art and his force, for his colors come to look obsequious.

Now let us turn to César Gemayel — this artist who tries to create for himself a place of his own, differing entirely from his fellow Lebanese artists. He shares with his colleagues in no element of painting: he has neither the precision of drawing that we know in Farroukh nor his local subjects, nor the delicacy of feeling and the simplicity apparent in Douaihy's paintings, nor the strength of composition, the purity of execution, and the depth of artistic taste that we sense in Onsi.

He is nearest to being an artist who labors to win society's interest and attention and to excite it. You see him choosing sensitive, instinctual subjects, and trying to bestow on his paintings a richness of color — as he learned it from his teacher Saleeby — setting down all his colors without order or harmony, so that his paintings come out vulgar, clashing in their parts, weak in effect. His large painting, which he named "The Fire Dance" (no. 26), is disjointed in its elements, utterly wanting in force of execution and mastery of lights and shadows and in the harmony and accord of colors; it is also weak in drawing, rigid, needing a great deal of movement and release — as though a crowd of admirers had accompanied Gemayel while he executed it, or as though the artist wished to please certain people and thought to please them all with this one large painting, so that his feelings scattered and his thoughts dispersed. He was doubtless overbold in his complacency in exhibiting such a painting — and others besides!

And yet, in spite of that, he can — if the model draws all his interest and all his feelings, and he believes in himself and knows his own power — produce paintings that hold truth of expression, sincerity of workmanship, and depth of feeling, as appears plainly in painting no. 36, "The Maiden in Furs," and "The Parisienne" (no. 38), and "Reading" (no. 45) — though in this last there is some weakness of composition (such as the presence of a number of huge books, clashing in color, shape, and size, beside the little reader).

It is as though art, for Gemayel, were a kind of luxury, not a principle to work by and to work for, sacrificing everything in its cause!

The time has doubtless come to speak of the summit of Lebanese art in the painting of landscape and in watercolor. Omar Onsi is one of those in whom Lebanon may rightly take pride among the artists of the world: he is a blend of the gentle feeling of Corot with the taste of Cézanne, his practical force, and his power of composition.

Onsi possesses the feeling of an inspired poet — perhaps he inherited it from his forefathers — and a true knowledge of the art of composition and of the choice of subjects which he does not fail to execute. The first thing that strikes one in him is his complete faith in what he does: he paints everything in the same manner, making no difference between a flower, a landscape, or a person; everything gives truthful expression to the fineness of his senses and his fidelity to his own feeling.

His painting rests upon color more than upon form. He is an idealist who raises his subject above reality, refining and purifying it, and makes its effect and its beauty values of color, composition, and harmony. He concentrates his strength in the general artistic form, not in partial forms and exactness of transcription, nor in dramatic subjects and choice sentimental titles — such as "Speak to Me," "Lamartine's Cedar," and "Telephone" (Coup de Téléphone).

Among Onsi's exhibited paintings are works worthy of attention and of absolute appreciation, in which he soared, in the art of landscape painting, to heights far beyond the reach of the other Lebanese artists — in the same subjects — living and dead alike.

It is enough to look at paintings nos. 1, 2, 6, 11, 14, 17, and 23, among others, where the colors are harmonious and the composition firm and coherent, and where each painting has its own atmosphere that makes you feel the air — its coolness in some, its heat and dryness in others.

I advise the reader, if he wishes to understand Onsi's works with a true understanding, to look at them with his feeling and his emotions, not with his mind and his eyes, and to strip away from them the reality of the outward form; otherwise he loses what is valuable in them.

I have doubtless wearied the reader with this survey, long in his opinion and very short in mine, for it is a subject rarely broached — rarely broached with sincerity and detachment. Finally: all the judgments in this article rest solely upon the paintings that were exhibited, for there may well be other paintings better and greater than these; but I am excused, and the reader is excused too, if we have not concerned ourselves with them and taken account of what is in them.