Thursday 16 December 2010

A Portrait that Draws itself

I have a strange idea that while a writer writes a character that character starts to writes itself and is only understood universally when it reaches the reader who eventually decides what it is all about.

This idea I have also understood explicitly when I sketch portraits I find lines taking their own course which I did not intended it to take and look like what it actually turned out. This can be said that I am not a good or professional artist, but somehow I feel this happens more in those cases where I know something peculiar about that person.

The portrait in question is one of most known portrait of Noon Meem Rashid the elusive and enigmatic poet. I have been an avid reader of his poetry and found it beautiful, obscure, relentlessly profound and unusual at the same time. To me he is a mystery, so while sketching his portrait when I leave it to the flow the outcome is strange, instead of his pompous look that is so evident in his famous portrait, in my sketch he looks skeptic, doubtful and unsure. Looking at the sketch I thought when people meet others they visualize others according to their own perceptions, so the character and personality that we have in our minds is not of the other person as he/she is but it is what we have perceived them.

The above sketch which I have drawn of N.M.Rashid which shows my skepticism and doubt towards him can well be called my self portrait?

13 comments:

  1. I put this post together with "Thinking's" Keys and I see a lovely, engaging self-revelation from both. I am thus encouraged to do more self-revelation VIA the portraits, works and INSIGHTS of others. I also am more and more nurtured by you and many here who each in their own way add to my views, truth, spirituality and also questions as yet untapped. Thanx for throwing this deep piece in amidst the gem-like work of "Love as a Mirror to See God"

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  2. hmm...very geniune...Dar Sahib....

    We want to see the people the way we want to see them...

    This is only...with time we allow him/her to fit in the sketch we have already in our mind for him/her...and through passing of time his/her sketch get change.

    Well....this is very intresting...I was just by the way thinking...that if someday I ask you to sketch me...not how you see me...but how you read me....

    What kind of an IMAGE I/You will see....??

    hmm...just wondering....

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  3. Connie
    Our understanding of the others is based on our perceptions so, if we are fearful, un-acknowledging, intolerant, and greedy and so on the other person mostly will look like this to us. The only way others can be good is simply to change our perception meaning ourselves….

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  4. Thinking
    I imagine you as strictly pragmatic, immaculate organizer, meticulously creative, exceedingly sensitive and remarkably imaginative. So your sketch must depict these highlights if not more…

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  5. "A portrait that draws itself"

    before reading your post, i imagined a pencil in half-sketched-character's hand, sketching himself ( yup! the hand is actually in the real world, coming out of the sketch :D )

    now i will place "you" as a portrait drawing N.M. Rashid's sketch :)

    Wonderful!

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  6. rIZ you are exceptionally gifted and creative, I simply adore you comments.

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  7. :) u can not paint without a canvas. Thanks to you and other blogs (canvases) i scribble some lines here and there...

    Thank you for the compliment Sir.

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  8. and we see things as we are.. :)

    a nice sketch ,an interesting piece of writing...

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  9. rIZ
    Your scribbling here and there makes interesting a vivid contribution.

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  10. HumaA
    Thanks for finding the post interesting.

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  11. Dar Sb
    So, human being is idealistic in nature, so we always find our own perceived qualities or dimensions in things we see. This is why people love art, poetry etc. as they can easily fit their own self in it. So people (most of them) spend the whole life interpreting and justifying their own self through different means. Have I learned the right message?

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  12. Yes Peerless precisely and exactly.

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  13. Nice summary, Peerless and Dar Sahib.

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