When Childhood Reveals Its Gifts — With the Child Artist Mahmoud Bazzi

A small visitor: My ears were startled by the fall of two small feet approaching my desk briskly — and this office has seldom known any but grown-up people. I turned toward the visitor, and before he could open his mouth I forestalled him: "I know you. You are the little boy who won the prize!"

His face lit up, and he smiled with a full mouth and wide eyes. I rose to my feet, not knowing how to welcome this guest "the only one of his kind." Should I shake his hand and go back to my seat — or ought I rather, like his mother, to embrace him and kiss him?!...

And I found myself bending down to shake the small brown hand extended with perfect politeness...

— Welcome, welcome, ...

— Mahmoud Bazzi — said the little one, and sat down on the chair! beside me!

Winner of the first prize:

I felt at once that I was in a "presence," and a wave of delight swept over me. I remembered that after his picture — the one that took the first prize in the art competition of the magazine "Dunya al-Ahdath" — had won my admiration, I got in touch with its proprietor, Mrs. Loreen Rihani, and asked her to introduce us to this gifted child... and I envied "Dunya al-Ahdath" for having discovered him before we did...

He loves Youssef Howayek:

I turned to Mahmoud and found him with his attention fixed on the wall at his left, where four drawings hung in a row. He began moving his eyes from Julia Dimashqiyah to Huda Shaarawi to Salma Sayegh, and gazing long at the face of "Mayy" — then he asked me:

— Is this the work of Youssef Howayek?

— Yes. Do you know Youssef Howayek?

— I don't know him in person. But my teacher told me about him.

— And do you know Omar Onsi and Moustafa Farroukh and César Gemayel?

— I saw their pictures at UNESCO.

— Which of the artists would you like to become when you grow up, Mahmoud?

— I'd like to be like Youssef Howayek, he answered without hesitation...

Of Saudi origin?!

— And how old are you, Mahmoud?
— Ten years... and some months!

And I noticed that, unlike other children, he confines his answers to the few words that tell. He first casts his eyes about in thought... then answers briefly.

— And do you know anything of the world besides Beirut?
— I know Damascus. And we're going there for the feast.
— Have you family in Damascus?
— Yes, my grandfather's house is in Damascus. My mother is Damascene.
— And your father?
— My father works repairing carpets. He was born in Damascus, but his origin is Saudi.
— Saudi!!

I could not conceal my astonishment. How should the Saudi desert, with its barren dryness, bring forth artistic gifts?!...

— And how did that come about? I asked Mahmoud, inquiring.

His story from his own mouth: — That's a long story, the little one answered. It goes back to my grandfather's days. Once, when he was four years old, he was walking in Jidda, and a Syrian merchant riding a horse came upon him. He took a liking to this black, barefoot boy and carried him off with him to Damascus!

— You mean he stole him?!
— Yes, he stole him... Mahmoud answered, laughing, over teeth as white as snow.
— And then what? I asked him.
— He stayed with him as a hired boy until he grew up and married my grandmother, from Damascus, and they were blessed with my father and my uncle, and both of them married Damascene wives.

Here I made out the mysterious secret that lies behind this child artist: it is the graft of native Syrian gifts opening into a flower!

I put his artistic gifts to the test:

As though I wished to make sure of this little one's art — and man is born to doubt — I asked him to draw something in the room. He picked out a large sea-shell that we use as an ash tray; I gave him a sheet of paper, and he brought out of his own pocket a pencil... He used his finger to smooth down the lines. But he used no eraser!

His eyes glittered with a strange ray as he shifted his glance rapidly from the shell to the paper and from the paper to the shell, having forgotten everything, oblivious of me and of all around him... nothing now but an artist drawing! And that gleaming ray in his black eyes carried me away as he drew swiftly, like one sitting an examination, his mouth closed with a modesty and a self-confidence without limit!

... In the flood of my amazement I slipped out of my office to the other offices and to the press, and I called out to them all: "Come and look!... Come and see how this child differs from every child you have ever seen or known!..."

And after presenting him with paper and pencils... and chocolate, I took him myself to a near-by studio and said to the photographer: "Take for me, please, the eyes of the gifted artist in this child!"

Mahmoud Bazzi's future: I asked him, as I adjusted his pose before the photographer's lens: "Do your parents encourage you to draw, Mahmoud?"

— My mother doesn't care. She's always worn out with work. We are five children, and I am the second of them. As for my father, how often he has scolded me for drawing and said to me: "That work feeds no bread! Read your books!" But drawing is my one delight... Still, I don't neglect my lessons, because I know they matter most now!

— And has your father's attitude toward you changed since you won the prize?
— Yes, he is more understanding now than before, and pays more attention to my drawings.
— And who has encouraged you from the beginning?
— First my uncle encourages me, and then my teacher, Madame Ghosn, at the Italian school for boys, where I study.

Such is the talk of the child Mahmoud Bazzi; I pass it on to the readers without exaggeration in a single letter. And I wonder — what future awaits this small artist??