Aziz Art December 2018

AZIZ ART
December 2018
Saloua Raouda Choucair
Oscar M. Domínguez
Remedios Varo Uranga
Qahveh Khanehei Painting
Marc Chagall

1-Saloua Raouda
Choucair
5-Oscar M. Domínguez
7-Remedios Varo
Uranga
13-Qahveh Khanehei
Painting
17-Marc Chagall
Director: Aziz Anzabi
Editor : Nafiseh Yaghoubi
Translator : Asra Yaghoubi
Research: Zohreh Nazari
http://www.aziz-anzabi.com

Saloua Raouda Choucair
June 24, 1916 – January 26, 2017
was a Lebanese painter and
sculptor.
She is said to have been the first
abstract artist in Lebanon though
she sold nothing there until 1962.
Life and work
Born in 1916 in Beirut, Choucair
started painting in the studios of
Lebanese painters Moustafa
Farroukh (1935) and Omar Onsi
(1942).Her exhibition in 1947
at the Arab Cultural Gallery in
Beirut is considered to have been
the Arab world's first abstract
painting exhibition. In 1948 she
left
Lebanon and went to Paris,
where she studied at the École
nationale supérieure des Beaux-
Arts and attended Fernand Léger's
studio. In 1950, she was one of the
first Arab artists to participate in
the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles in
Paris and had in 1951 a solo
exhibition at Colette Allendy's
gallery, which
was better received in Paris than
in Beirut.
In 1959 she began to concentrate
on sculpture, which became her
main preoccupation in 1962. In
1963, she was awarded the
National Council of Tourism Prize
for the execution of a stone
sculpture for a public site in Beirut.
In 1974, the Lebanese Artists
Association sponsored an honorary
retrospective exhibition of her work
at the National Council of Tourism
in Beirut.In 1985, she won an
appreciation prize from the General
Union of Arab Painters. In 1988, she
was awarded a medal by the
Lebanese government.A
retrospective exhibition organized
by Saleh Barakat was presented at
the Beirut Exhibition Center in
2011.
Choucair's work has been
considered as one of the best
examples of the spirit of
abstraction characteristic of Arabic
visual art, completely disconnected
from the observation of nature and
inspired by Arabic geometric art.
Choucair recently received a
prestigious honorary doctorate
from the American University of
Beirut (May 2014.
Her artwork "Poem" is on loan to
Louvres Abu Dhabi.
1

She turned 100 in June 2016.She died on January 26, 2017.Her older
sister, women's rights leader Anissa Rawda Najjar, lived almost 103
years.
Raouda Choucair's 102nd birthday.
Solo exhibitions
"Saloua Raouda Choucair: The Meaning of One, The Meaning of the
Multiple", Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, 2015, curated
by Laura Barlow.
Noble Forms, Salwa Raouda Choucair, Maqam Art Gallery, Beirut, 2010
Retrospective. Salwa Raouda Choucair, Beirut Exhibition Center, 2011
Saloua Raouda Choucair, Tate Modern, 2013
Group exhibitions
The Road to Peace, Beirut Art Center, 2009
Art from Lebanon, Beirut Exhibition Center, 2012

Oscar M. Domínguez
(January 3, 1906 – December 31,
1957) was a Spanish surrealist
painter. Born in San Cristóbal de La
Laguna on the island of Tenerife, on
the Canary Islands Spain,
Domínguez spent his youth with his
grandmother in Tacoronte and
devoted himself to painting at a
young age after suffering a serious
illness which affected his growth
and caused a progressive
deformation of his facial bone
frame and limbs.
He went to Paris at 21 where he
first worked for his father in the
central market of Les Halles, and
spent his nights diving in cabarets.
He then frequented some art
schools, and visited galleries and
museums.
In 1933 Domínguez met André
Breton, a theoretician of
Surrealism, and Paul Éluard, known
as the poet of this movement, and
took part a year later in the
Surrealist exhibition held in
Copenhagen and those of London
and Tenerife in 1936. He took up
the Russian-invented technique of
decalcomania in 1936, using
gouache spread thinly on a sheet of
paper or other surface (glass has
been used), which is then pressed
onto another surface such as a
canvas.
Domínguez was rapidly attracted by
avant-garde painters, notably Yves
Tanguy and Pablo Picasso, whose
influences were visible in his first
works. At 25 he painted a selfportrait
full of premonition as he His 1937 oil painting The Infernal
showed himself with a deformed Machine sold for 2 770 000 FF (US $
hand and with the veins of his arm 404,375) on June 8, 2000 at
cut. He chose to kill himself 27 Drouot-Montaigne in Paris.
5
years later by cutting his veins.

His 1933 oil painting Roma's portrait sold for 902,500 GBP
(US $ 1,469,270) on Feb. 4th. 2014 at CHRISTIE'S in London.
In 1952 he started an affair with Marie-Laure de Noailles, who called
him "poochie".
Domínguez committed suicide December 31, 1957, by slitting his wrists
in the bath. Marie-Laure arranged to have him interred in the
Bischoffsheim family mausoleum in the Montparnasse cemetery

Remedios Varo Uranga
December 16, 1908 – October 8,
1963
was a Spanish-Mexican parasurrealist
painter and
anarchist.
She was born María de los
Remedios Alicia Rodrigo Varo y
Uranga in Anglès, a small town in
the province of Girona, Spain in
1908.[1] Her birth helped her
mother get over the death of
another daughter, which is the
reason behind the name. In 1924
she studied at the Real Academia
de Bellas Artes de San Fernando,
Madrid. During the Spanish Civil
War she fled to Paris where she
was greatly influenced by the
surrealist movement.
She met her second husband (after
her death it was discovered that
she had never divorced her first
husband, painter Gerardo
Lizarraga), the French surrealist
poet Benjamin Péret, in Barcelona.
There she was a member of the art
group Logicophobiste.Due to
her Republican ties, her 1937
move to Paris with Péret ensured
that she would never be able to
return to Franco's Spain. She was
forced into exile from Paris during
the German occupation of
France and moved
to Mexico City at the end of
1941. She died at the height of her
career from a heart attack in
Mexico City in 1963
7

Early life
Varo’s father,
Rodrigo Varo y Zajalvo,
was an intellectual man who
had a strong influence on his
daughter’s artistic development.
Varo would copy the blueprints he
brought home from his job in
construction and he helped her
further develop her technical
drawing abilities.
He encouraged independent
thought and supplemented her
education with science and
adventure books, notably the
novels of Alexandre Dumas, Jules
Verne, and Edgar Allan Poe. As she
grew older he provided her with
text on mysticism and philosophy.
Varo’s mother, Ignacia Uranga
Bergareche,
was born to Basque parents in
Argentina. She was a devout
Catholic and commended herself
to the patron saint of Anglès, the
Virgin of Los Remedios, promising
to name her first
daughter after the saint.
Her father was a hydraulic engineer
and the family traveled the Iberian
Peninsula and into North Africa. To
keep Remedios busy during these
long trips, her father had her copy
the technical drawings of his work
with their straight lines, radii and
perspectives,
which she reproduced faithfully. As
a child she read much with favorite
authors including Jules Verne,
Edgar Allan Poe and Alexandre
Dumas. She also read books about
oriental philosophy and mysticism.
Those first few years of her life left
an impression on her that would
later show up in motifs like
machinery, furnishing, artifacts, and
Romanesque and Gothic
architecture unique to Anglès.

Varo was given the basic education
deemed proper for young ladies
of a good upbringing at a convent
school - an experience that
fostered her rebellious tendencies.
Varo took a critical view of religion
and rejected the religious ideology
of her childhood education and
instead clung to the liberal and
universalist ideas that her father
instilled in her.
Formative years
The very first works of Varo's, a
self-portrait and several
portraits of family members, date
to 1923 when she was studying
for a baccalaureate
at the School of Arts and Crafts.
In 1924 (age 15) she enrolled in
the San Fernando Fine Arts
Academy in Madrid, the alma
mater of Salvador Dalí and other
renowned artists. Varo got her
diploma as a drawing teacher in
1930.[ At school, surrealistic
elements were already apparent in
her work, as it had arrived to Spain
from France and she took an early
interest in it. While in Madrid, Varo
had her initial introduction to
Surrealism through lectures,
exhibitions, films and theater. She
was a regular visitor to the Prado
Museum and took particular
interest in the paintings of
Hieronymus Bosch, most notably
The Garden of Earthly Delights.
In 1930 she married a young
painter named Gerardo Lizárraga.
The couple left Spain for Paris, both
to escape the rising political
tensions as well as to be nearer to
where much of Europe’s art scene
was.

Qahveh Khanehei Painting
(Tea House style of painting)
oil painting on canvas, Qajar
period.
Q ahveh Khanehei painting is an
Iranian painting style combined
with European techniques (oil and
color on wall and convass). It was
about eighty years ago that this
method was formed among
laypeople. The characteristic
of this art is its popularity and
distance from court arts. Unknown
artists who had some experience
in painting on tiles, were
influenced by the atmosphere and
ambience of Qahveh-Khanehs ,
along with Shahnameh-Khani
(reading verses from Shahnameh)
endeavoured to create simple and
beatiful views
on the walls of Qahveh Khaneh
and on cloths.
Though they did not have any
academic instructions, these artists
succeeded to occupy a place in
Iranian artistic history for
themselves. For its presence in
narrations and Shamayel gardani
(carrying the icons) Qahveh
Khanehei painting may be regarded
a part of Iranian painting arts. And
on other hand due to its distance
from painting features it may be
considered among visual arts. But,
prior to illustration of this
traditional and true Iranian art, we
should acquire knowledge about
Qahneh Khanehs . These places
with their old history have been the
keeper of our old traditions,
thoughts and tastes. In
QahvehKhanehs the narrators of
Shahnameh told about natioanl
stories with much enthusiasm.
Therefore, in the course of long
centuries, QahvehKhanehs took
many characteristics, which are
important for their extensive
contact with people. In fact
QahvehKhanehs of old days played
the role of today mass media. This
role had its due rules and
traditions, one of which being “
QahvehKhane painting”.
13

In this style of painting, one can
easily detect some elements of
Miniature painting. As narration of
stories in its climax incline towards
poetry, the paintings of
QahvehKhaneh some times tend to
delicateness of miniature.
These are not much records
concerning the history of this
national art, because in its present
form, it has been current since
eighty years ago. But remaining
paintings and plaster moulding
indicate that some kind of this art
existed in 18th and 19th centuries.
For example the paintings on tiles
of Chehel Sotun Palace in Esphahan
have been worked under Shah
Abbass II and Nader, of course most
of theme are Shabih Sazi (dramatic)
and they are inspired by feasts,
while Qahveh Khanehei painting is
purely imaginary and the painter
does not have any model and what
he draws is merely that which goes
in his mind.
Observing the present evidences he
draws an imaginary picture of, for
example, Karbala desert, Ashura
epic, and Resurrection day and
some epical pictures which indicate
the imagination and enthusiasm of
painting.

Qahveh Khanehei painting which
is called Imaginary painting by
many people, is an art with its
recognized principles. Its main
feature is retaining the
genuinenes of portraits, in a way
that even in dealing scenes of
feasts or epics, the painter makes
his outmost effort to paint the
faces. This feature is due to the
fact that “ state” and “ motion”
are limited in this type of painting.
In each painting the faces convey
the subject intended by painter to
onlookers. The painter of this style
is an earnest narrator who
consciously or unconsciously
represents the protagonists or
antagonists with due emotions
towards them. For example in
Rostam and Sohrab, Rostam’s face
occupies a large place in the
painting and this shows the
painter’s love of Rostam. In a
religious painting the face of
enemies and vicious people are as
ugly as possible.
In Qahveh Khanehei painting there
is no limitation of subject and the
painter’s hands are free to draw
whatever he desires. Due to this
reason, no painting could be ever
considered a criterion for other
works. In general one may devide
the subjects into three groups:
religious, epic, feast and amorous
paintings.

Marc Chagall
6 July 1887 – 28 March 1985)
was a Russian-French artist.21 Art
critic Robert Hughes referred to
Chagall as "the quintessential
Jewish artist of the twentieth
century" (though Chagall saw his
work as "not the dream of one
people but of all humanity"). An
early modernist,
he was associated with several
major artistic styles and created
works in virtually every artistic
medium, including painting, book
illustrations, stained glass, stage
sets, ceramic, tapestries and fine
art prints.
According to art historian
Michael J. Lewis, Chagall was
considered to be "the last survivor
of the first generation of European
modernists". For decades, he "had
also been respected as the world's
preeminent Jewish artist". Using
the medium of stained glass, he
produced windows for the
cathedrals of Reims and Metz,
windows for the UN, and the
Jerusalem Windows in Israel. He
also did large-scale paintings,
including part of the ceiling of the
Paris Opéra.
Before World War I, he traveled
between St. Petersburg, Paris, and
Berlin. During this period he
created his own mixture and style
of modern art based on his idea of
Eastern European Jewish folk
culture. He spent the wartime years
in Soviet Belarus, becoming one of
the country's most distinguished
artists and a member of the
modernist avant-garde, founding
the Vitebsk Arts College before
leaving again for Paris in 1922.
He had two basic reputations,
writes Lewis: as a pioneer of
modernism and as a major Jewish
artist. He experienced modernism's
"golden age" in Paris, where "he
synthesized the art forms of
Cubism, Symbolism, and Fauvism,
and the influence of Fauvism gave
rise to Surrealism". Yet throughout
these phases of his style "he
remained most emphatically a
Jewish artist, whose work was one
long dreamy reverie of life in his
native village of Vitebsk. "When
Matisse dies," Pablo Picasso
remarked in the 1950s, "Chagall will
be the only painter left who
understands what colour really is".
17

Early life
Chagall's Parents
Marc Chagall was born Moishe
Segal in a Lithuanian Jewish
family in Liozna,near the city of
Vitebsk (Belarus, then part of the
Russian Empire) in 1887. At the
time of his birth, Vitebsk's
population was about 66,000,
with half the population being
Jewish. A picturesque city of
churches and synagogues, it was
called "Russian Toledo", after a
cosmopolitan city of the former
Spanish Empire. As the city was
built mostly of wood, little of it
survived years of occupation and
destruction during World War II.
Chagall was the eldest of nine
children. The family name, Shagal,
is a variant of the name Segal,
which in a Jewish community was
usually borne by a Levitic family.
His father, Khatskl (Zachar) Shagal,
was employed by a herring
merchant, and his mother, Feige-
Ite, sold groceries from their
home. His father worked hard,
carrying heavy barrels but earning
only 20 roubles each month (the
average wages across the Russian
Empire being 13 roubles a month).
Chagall would later include fish
motifs "out of respect for his
father", writes Chagall biographer,
Jacob Baal-Teshuva. Chagall wrote
of these early years:
Day after day, winter and summer,
at six o'clock in the morning, my
father got up and went off to the
synagogue. There he said his usual
prayer for some dead man or other.
On his return he made ready the
samovar, drank some tea and went
to work. Hellish work, the work of a
galley-slave. Why try to hide it?
How tell about it? No word will
ever ease my father's lot... There
was always plenty of butter and
cheese on our table. Buttered
bread, like an eternal symbol, was
never out of my childish hands.

One of the main sources of
income of the Jewish population
of the town was from the
manufacture
of clothing that was sold
throughout Russia.
had been a center of that culture
dating from the 1730s with its
teachings derived from the
Kabbalah. Chagall scholar Susan
Goodman describes the links and
sources of his art to his early home:
They also made furniture and
various agricultural tools.
From the late 18th century to the
First World War, the Russian
government confined Jews to
living within the Pale of
Settlement, which included
modern Ukraine, Belarus, Poland,
Lithuania, and Latvia, almost
exactly corresponding to the
territory of the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth recently taken
over by Imperial Russia. This
caused the creation of Jewish
market-villages (shtetls) through
out today's Eastern Europe, with
their own markets, schools,
hospitals, and other community
institutions.
Chagall's art can be understood as
the response to a situation that has
long marked the history of Russian
Jews. Though they were cultural
innovators who made important
contributions to the broader
society, Jews were considered
outsiders in a frequently hostile
society... Chagall himself was born
of a family steeped in religious life;
his parents were observant Hasidic
Jews who found spiritual
satisfaction in a life defined by their
faith and organized by prayer.
Chagall was friends with Sholom
Dovber Schneerson, and later with
Menachem M. Schneerson.
Most of what is known about
Chagall's early life has come from
his autobiography, My Life. In it, he
described the major influence that
the culture of Hasidic Judaism had
on his life as an artist. Vitebsk itself

Art education
Portrait of Chagall by
Yehuda (Yuri) Pen, his first art
teacher in Vitebsk
In Russia at that time, Jewish
children were not allowed to
attend regular Russian schools or
universities. Their movement
within the city was also restricted.
Chagall therefore received his
primary education at the local
Jewish religious school, where he
studied Hebrew and the Bible. At
the age of 13, his mother tried to
enroll him in a Russian high
school, and he recalled,
"But in that school, they don't
take Jews. Without a moment's
hesitation, my courageous mother
walks up to a professor." She
offered the headmaster
50 roubles to let him attend, which
he accepted.
A turning point of his artistic life
came when he first noticed a fellow
student drawing. Baal-Teshuva
writes that for the young Chagall,
watching someone draw "was like a
vision, a revelation in black and
white". Chagall would later say that
there was no art of any kind in his
family's home and the concept was
totally alien to him. When Chagall
asked the schoolmate how he
learned to draw, his friend replied,
"Go and find a book in the library,
idiot, choose any picture you like,
and just copy it". He soon began
copying images from books and
found the experience so rewarding
he then decided he wanted to
become an artist.

He eventually confided to his
mother, "I want to be a painter",
although she could not yet
understand his sudden interest in
art or why he would choose a
vocation that "seemed so
impractical", writes Goodman.
The young Chagall explained,
"There's a place in town; if I'm
admitted and if I complete the
course, I'll come out a regular
artist. I'd be so happy!“
It was 1906, and he had noticed
the studio of Yehuda (Yuri) Pen, a
realist artist who also operated a
small drawing school in Vitebsk,
which included the future artists
El Lissitzky and Ossip Zadkine. Due
to Chagall's youth and lack of
income, Pen offered to teach him
free of charge. However, after
a few months at the school,
Chagall realized that academic
portrait painting did not suit his
desires.
Artistic inspiration
Marc Chagall, 1911,
Trois heures et demie (Le poète),
Half-Past Three (The Poet)
Halb vier Uhr, oil on canvas,
195.9 x 144.8 cm, The Louise and
Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950,
Philadelphia
Museum of Art
Marc Chagall, 1911, I and the
Village, oil on canvas, 192.1 x 151.4
cm, Museum of Modern Art, New
York
Marc Chagall, 1911-12, The
Drunkard (Le saoul), 1912, oil on
canvas. 85 x 115 cm. Private
collection
Marc Chagall, 1912, Calvary
(Golgotha), oil on canvas, 174.6 x
192.4 cm, Museum of Modern Art,
New York. Alternative titles:
Kreuzigung Bild 2 Christus
gewidmet [Golgotha. Crucifixion.
Dedicated to Christ]. Sold through
Galerie Der Sturm (Herwarth
Walden), Berlin to Bernhard
Koehler (1849–1927), Berlin, 1913.
Exhibited: Erster Deutscher
Herbstsalon, Berlin, 1913
Goodman notes that during this
period in Russia, Jews had two
basic alternatives for joining the art
world: One was to "hide or deny
one's Jewish roots". The other
alternative—the one that Chagall
chose—was "to cherish and
publicly express one's Jewish roots"
by integrating them into his art. For
Chagall, this was also his means of
"self-assertion and an expression of
principle."

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