With the Artist Madiha Tahseen Omar

She works to revive Arab art, and draws the inspiration for her paintings from Arabic calligraphy!

Edvick J. Shayboub

Who is she? To make the acquaintance of Madiha Tahseen Omar at a cocktail party is one thing; to hear her speak of her art is another..

In the first case she is — the wife of Mr. Yaseen Omar, chargé d'affaires at the Iraqi Embassy — like any society lady of high refinement; but in the second, what self-confidence beams from her eyes, and what enthusiasm pours out with her words! It is perhaps the enthusiasm of one who knows she has a destiny in her world that deserves special notice!

A childhood dream: In the atmosphere of her small studio, Madiha tells you of the hopes that haunted her head as a child and as a young girl, and that were fulfilled at her hands as a young woman. While the artists of the age swing between the schools of modern art — and how many they are — she stands alone in a school she drew out of her own self, when it appeared to her that there were possibilities for reviving Arab art and bringing it out of the frame of the traditional, geometric "arabesque" into the open field of modern art.

Studies and travels: That singular idea was born of nine years and more of study, drawing on the currents of art old and new, in the institutes of Washington, Paris, and London..

These studies interacted with what had drawn the young girl's attention and interest among the masterpieces of Arab art on the doors and domes of mosques and on the ceilings and walls of houses, in Baghdad, Damascus, and Istanbul. How often her eyes gazed for hours on end, exploring the meanings of those winding, interlacing designs, wishing she could loosen their bonds, free them from their rigidity and the flatness of their lines, and bring them nearer the spirit of the age, while keeping their captivating Eastern character!

It is easy for the budding artist to feel his way toward the secrets of art along a road traced on the pattern of this school or that; but the road of creation is beset with dangers and hazards, and an original artist, without doubt, is the one who chooses for her feet the rugged path, and for her wings the unknown reaches of the horizon — as Madiha Omar has done!

Abstract art: What is commonly said of Madiha Omar's art is that it is abstract, inspired by Arabic calligraphy... The artist arrived at a certain truth: that the Arabic alphabet has abstract meanings, symbolic in their essence, and that every letter has its own moving personality and its individuality, capable of being an abstract image that contributes to the creation of a complete picture. Arabic script, in her view, holds an immense capacity for expressing thought and the feelings of mind and heart, and stores up a fertile material for the work of art, which is forever seeking out the new, yearning for creation, and shrinking from rigidity...

Each letter has its meaning? Every letter of the Arabic alphabet, says Madiha, conveys a particular meaning, and here is a spacious source of inspiration. The letter 'ayn, for example, which has no counterpart in English, is a strong, active letter; in Arabic it carries two meanings: on the one hand it means the spring of water, and on the other, the eye that sees. And the letter lam, whose English counterpart is (L), expresses delicate rhythmic movements.

She has realistic paintings: I said that Madiha Omar's art is abstract in its origin; yet she has realistic paintings of great beauty. Here her colors are calm, serene in their joy, reminding you of the atmosphere of English painting..

Since 1948 she has gone on showing her paintings to the public of art lovers and explaining her idea to them. She has exhibited in Washington, and in San Francisco, Baghdad, Istanbul, and Beirut..

In appreciation of her art, Mrs. Eva Malik bought for the Lebanese House in Washington two of her paintings representing abstract art inspired by the Arabic letters.

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Of imitator artists we have a swarming army; but Madiha belongs to a school of her own imagination's and her own hand's making. She constellates the idea, in colors, after her inventive fashion, and releases it as an open field for enamored eyes forever looking out for the wonders of truth and beauty!

Before her paintings: What seizes you in her paintings is her skill in blending the two arts, Eastern and Western — a skill acquired from an inherited fineness of taste, from long travels, and from contemplation of the faces of the universe. But she has not imitated; she has invented — and there lies her distinction over hundreds of artists perplexed among the many doctrines of art.

You are seized, too, by the magic of her colors, harmonious, keeping step one with another, with a preference for the dark shades, so that you and the artist seem to be in enchanted worlds out of the Thousand and One Nights... "The Hanging Gardens of Babylon," "Eyes of the Night," "Colors in the Sea," "The Atomic Bomb," and "Guidance..."