On the Autumn 1956 Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture

1 — Seventy-seven painters and sculptors, Lebanese or resident in Lebanon, took part in the exhibition; some 300 paintings and statues of theirs were shown.

2 — The guiding address with which Dr. Charles Malik, Minister of Education and Fine Arts, opened the exhibition was marked by depth and by a call to create the loftier and the better.

3 — The output of the young artists predominated in this exhibition, and much of it is influenced by the modern schools.

4 — The prize of His Excellency President Chamoun was awarded to the sculptor Michel Basbous. What I admire in this young sculptor is his courage, his struggle with matter, and his attempt to express something... something obscure that lurks in the material and defies the artist's hand... We should like to see these bodies, folded in upon themselves, move and dance and sing...

5 — Copying and the following of "fashion" abound in the paintings, because artists seldom express their true feeling. Gibran's drawings express his feeling faithfully, but they lack a certain maturity that would make of Gibran the greatest Lebanese artist.

6 — Youssef Howayek's "studies," too, express a deep feeling — he may be the deepest of the Lebanese artists of the twentieth century in expressing his feeling — but these studies, as they were displayed, were lost in an unsuitable setting and lighting.

7 — Omar Onsi's watercolors are faithful to the Lebanese village...

8 — The efforts of Mr. Fouad Haddad, head of the Arts Department in the Ministry, are appreciated and deserving of thanks...

We promised our readers in the last issue a detailed report on the "Autumn Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture," and we do not yet know whether art — any art — can ever receive its full due of study and examination!

What is beyond doubt is that there is in Lebanon today a blessed artistic renaissance which is receiving wholesome care. Has the soil, one wonders, first been prepared, and the conditions of growth provided, so that we may look forward, tomorrow, to ripe and delicious fruit?

This is the fifth exhibition of its kind, sponsored by the Arts Department in the Ministry of National Education and Fine Arts — that Ministry whose voice was never heard until the day these seasonal exhibitions began, inviting the public at large to the UNESCO Palace to witness that Lebanon keeps pace with the advanced countries of the world not only in its intellectual renaissance but in its artistic renaissance as well. And have the intellectual and artistic renaissances ever marched except side by side?

And is this artistic renaissance, whose first glimmerings we perceive in our exhibition today, anything but the echo of the intellectual revolution whose blaze has raged unabated since the late nineteenth century? Paris was the starting point of that revolution, and from it it seeped out and spread to the countries of Europe. From Europe the students of art, from West and East alike, drank their fill, and carried back with them to their countries burning sparks. Before long the fire of revolution had flared up everywhere: agitated minds, a striving to devise the new, and weariness of

the monotony and repetition of the old.

There is, moreover, a particular state of soul that seizes those who labor in the fine arts, in the world of contemplation, imagination, and restlessness, so that the fingers rush to express the visions and impressions that clamor in the rebellious brain. In this atmosphere the process of inspired creation takes place.

Where, then, do we stand in this process?

And is the output of our artists on the level of world production?

We all acknowledge that the Arts Department in the Ministry of Education is active — how active! — in nourishing and encouraging the arts, witness these numerous prizes, crowned by the prize of His Excellency President Chamoun, and witness these preparations and arrangements that accompany the exhibition each season. But I fear we have begun the work where the West left off. We began by holding exhibitions before we had founded schools of art and of art criticism, and before we had arrived at building the personality of the Lebanese artist, so that this personality might shine forth in his work and we might rightly say: this is our art!

We have fallen short from the very start in embracing and nourishing budding and young artists, and in opening studios for painting and sculpture where they might practice the various arts of the craft until their fingers become obedient to their will and to the inspiration of their minds. All this is necessary and imperative before we set them free to express their true feelings and the particular state of soul in which they live, and before we set about weighing their production in the international balance!

Poor Lebanese artist — and Eastern artist in general! What means have been prepared for him, that his brush and his chisel should rise to the international level? Where are the schools of specialization for the study of the history of the artistic movement? Where are the museums and permanent exhibitions upon which and around which the attention of students and of those with artistic gifts might center?

In Italy alone this year there are 500 art institutes and ten thousand students, and art students have increased 85 percent over last year... These figures are of course fantastic in proportion to our small country; but we speak relatively, and we ask whether there exists in Lebanon a single studio to which the unknown sculptor can resort to bring his artistic design into the realm of execution, assured that there is someone to

cast it in plaster, and someone, too, to carry out the sculptor's instructions in pouring it in bronze or carving it in stone or marble...

There is no doubt that art exhibitions are a great encouragement, especially to the art-mad young; but I fear that, in our present circumstances, we are encouraging these young people to copy and imitate, by their turning to production before the building of their artistic personality is complete!

We want an artistic production that expresses our joys, our sorrows, and our hopes. National calamities have been, and still are, the best spur to creation and invention; where, then, are the paintings and statues that speak of this?... I looked for them in the art exhibition yesterday and found them few... And until they predominate over the other artistic strains, it cannot rightly be said that we now possess an authentic art and authentic artists who express their feeling truthfully, and whose works the generations will preserve among the immortal monuments of art.