Let Me Be Mad

Gamal Nkrumah is enchanted by the depictions of Umm Kolthoum and the rendition of her stage presence by Syrian artist who clings on to an impassioned past
Love, longing and loss were the overwhelming themes of her songs. Umm Kolthoum sang in the classical Arabic of Omar Al-Khayyam's Rubaiyat. She also sang lyrics of the colloquial Egyptian Arabic poet Bayram El-Tunsi. It is perhaps no exaggeration to pronounce her as contemporary Arab culture's crowning glory.
Umm Kolthoum's towering coiffures, the striking raven blackness of her hair, represents a symbolic fin de siècle Egypt. She was bedizened like a Pharaonic queen.
Love cannot pass away into eternal oblivion. Nor can her unsurpassed voice be silenced. The challenge, though, is to put paint to canvas and reproduce the resplendence that was Umm Kolthoum, like some chef-d'oeuvre of Benvenuto Cellini rather than a relic of an age bygone.
She demonstrated the majesty of the zeitgeist. The words, the impassioned intonation that emanated from her lips paid tribute to a glorious age. Heaven-bestowed and heaven-bestowing, she sang of both sorrow and salvation.
Arab nationalism took wing even as the Arab world began to breathe the air of freedom. And Umm Kolthoum was like some great goddess who, in Pharaonic fashion, after her earthly life was made a queen of the netherworld. Today her glory is brought brilliantly once more to light in a riot of colour and splendour.
The corporeality, the stylistic aspect of Umm Kolthoum cannot be put out of sight even as her voice cannot be shut out of hearing. She sang as low as the second octave and as high as the eighth octave.
Peerless, Umm Kolthoum sang solo for most of her career. Her public persona was as important as her astounding voice and stage presence. She was working to a different beat than her contemporaries. People had loftier expectations of her than of any other performer of her day.
There is a paradox at the heart of the phenomenal success of Umm Kolthoum. "The Lady", as Charles de Gaulle referred to her, played extraordinary tricks on the eyes and imagination of her audience. She peered at her admirers through her trademark dark shades exhibiting moments of quite compelling magnificence, comeliness and pulchritude. She clutched at her white handkerchief, yet another hallmark of hers, with such intensity that vigorously bespoke of an elemental virtuosity. She moved with jerky ritualistic motion like the majestic Eve who first trod this Earth.
"The Incomparable Voice" as Maria Callas called Umm Kolthoum completely commanded the enigmatic figures behind her as she sang in hypnotic repetitions. Her musicians, too, lurked in the deep recesses of the Arab psyche. Jean-Paul Sartre was among her most ardent admirers. In other words, Umm Kolthoum has a solid tradition of Arabic incantation, both religious and folkloric, to draw on.
Her magic was the stuff of myth and legend. Umm Kolthoum was a connoisseur of the art and music of the Arab world. She was accepted with more or less diffidence in some quarters and especially by the uncompromising militant Islamists who eschew art and non-religious music. Umm Kolthoum, in sharp contrast, understood the value of the traditions musical and otherwise that has been handed down to our times. Islamists have always been incredulous, even suspicious, of her intrinsic value as an iconic figure of Arabic art.
Born in Damascus in 1941, , one of Syria's most distinguished artists and art critics and a regular columnist with the London-based Pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat instinctively appreciates Umm Kolthoum's position at the very pinnacle of the Pan-Arab cultural flowering. She sang at a crucial time in the development of national self-determination and nationalistic fervour. He is an uncritical admirer of his idol. She was a living symbol of Arab cultural renaissance and Arabi sees Umm Kolthoum in this chronology.
From the vantage point of the dedicated Pan-Arabist and a solid believer that Umm Kolthoum personified the age in stage presence, poignant lyrics and powerful vocals, he understood the meaning of the mythical age. Arabi is acutely conscious of the exceptional ethical value of Umm Kolthoum's contribution to the secular contemporary Arab cultural expression.
Arabi's works are housed in several prestigious collections such as the Arab World Institute in Paris, the Barcelona Contemporary Museum of Art and South Korea's Museum in Seoul. This particular solo exhibition in Cairo confirms his high repute in the world of Arab art.
His paintings give us a fair conception of the great woman and her times. These oil paintings in the boldest of colours amount to a most impressive testimony to the wonder of Egypt in the Nasserist age. They are intensely interesting as an illustration of the Nasserist performing arts at its peak.
Arabi's paintings of Umm Kolthoum opened up for us a vista of a vital realm of the recent past of the Arab world. The question now naturally arises, what particular aspect of Umm Kolthoum's personality attracted Arabi?
A graduate of the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus University, Arabi went on to receive a diploma in painting from the Higher Institute of Fine Arts in Paris in 1983 and later earned a PhD in aesthetics from Sorbonne University in 1987. "It took me six years to complete my doctoral thesis," he muses. His exhibition brought once more to the light of day the veritable majesty of the Arab world's greatest minstreland that in a Republican age. What conclusions may reasonably be drawn from it?
"The music of Umm Kolthoum is a reminder of how modernisation has murdered the true spirit of the Arab cultural heritage. Authentic Arabism is at stake. She personified the Pan-Arab essence. The power of her voice evoked the Arab consciousness."
La Belle Epoque, with its often confusing cadences, is graphically reflected in Arabi's jagged lines. Arabi has been residing in France since 1975 where he has undertaken extensive art research and has penned a significant collection of art writings in both French and Arabic.
Aesthetic theorist, artist and art critic, Arabi candidly depicts the high-spirited and yet thoroughly well-mannered performances of Umm Kolthoum on stage.
"My basic theme is the symbiotic correlation between music and Sufism in Islamic art. The synergetic relationship between the visual and the perceptible by the ear."
Is it not a strange coincidence that the current exhibition of Arabi's depiction of Umm Kolthoum's dramatic performances happens simultaneously with international celebrations of Mevlana Jelaluddin Al-Rumi's life and works? The intoxicating seductiveness of Rumi's poems, the power and hold of the Whirling Dervish festivals all over the world in his honour and especially those held every December in Konya, Turkey, are reminiscent of Umm Kolthoum's universal appeal.
"Let Me Be Mad" rang his heart-wrenching invocation. "O incomparable Giver of life, cut reason loose at last."
Umm Kolthoum, impassioned, also sand the Quatrains of Omar Al-Khayyam. Yes, Arabs to some extent appropriated the Rubaiyat from Farsi, the original Persian text of Khayyam. But then Arabi is apprised of how the cultures of the Muslim Middle East, Turkish and Persian influences notwithstanding, are inextricably intertwined with the Arabic cultural heritage.
"What is the sum and substance of the Arabic-Islamic taste? How do the visual and the audible interact in Arab and Islamic culture? This is what arouses my curiosity. This is precisely what animates my paintings of Umm Kolthoum on stage."
In Arabi's works, Umm Kolthoum's signature tunes find a much larger than life canvas. It is as if he is utilising authentic musical techniques of the time from a corps of male musicians, instrumentalists who were an integral part of "The Lady's" repertoire. Always present, sitting speechlessly behind Umm Kolthoum, is renowned oud virtuoso and composer Mohamed El-Qasabgi who first introduced her to the Arabic Theatre Palace where her first real public success was acknowledged.
"I am not particularly interested in the details of the physical features of Umm Kolthoum. Rather I am fascinated by the symbolism of her presence on stage."
The sense one has leaving Arabi's exhibition is that he knows he has done his bit to vindicate the spirit of Umm Kolthoum. So he has. He also exonerates the spiritual essence of the Nasserist age.
"I am captivated by her commanding persona and the way she carries herself. She sings with authority." But Arabi is also interested in her retinue, her orchestra at large and especially the inner circle, the five men, her musicians who accompany her and who represent an integral part of her stage presence. "There is a fascistic element in her mannerism which complements the romance of her music and lyricism."
His art, like her music, serves its political purpose with a perplexing degree of style. Perhaps it is the romanticism of it all. Was it Hobb Eih?(What Love? 1960), or Esaal Rouhak(Ask Yourself 1970) literally Ask Your Soul, a decade later? Or perhaps, Wi Daret Al-Ayyam (And The Days Have Past By 1970)? "Her strength of character is palpable. The very circumstance, which the public deems painful, Umm Kolthoum makes salubrious, sublime."
We are enthralled by her voice, while her words entertain our very souls unawares. There is a spiritual yearning in all of us even as we are entertained unawares. We thirst and hunger for that spirituality that she discerningly cloaks in the façade of flirtation and passion.
El-Qasabgi, the forlorn lover, is ever behind her as close to her as is deemed correct and proper. She, however, purposely ignores his overtures. She gives him her back. His attachment and infatuation are cruelly matched by her cold and callous aloofness. She sings for another.
His craving for her affections is met with intentional and premeditated detachment. Her ahs and her groans are reserved for her audience and for someone special. Whom, we shall never know.
She sings of unrequited love, disregarding El-Qasabgi behind her. "Come hither, my love," she cries in anguish. But she calls another, and not him. Arabi's depictions of the Odd Couple are metaphoric. She can cheer but cannot comfort him.
El-Qasabgi meekly bears his cross. But she is not heartless. Even when he passes away, she leaves his chair behind her empty. No one but he can fill it.
Umm Kolthoum stood tall before him like his Cross of Calvary. Her remorseless rejection of his advances did not mean that she didn't appreciate his talents. She was his Christ and he was her devoted accomplice. The spiritual outpourings of her passion, voiced in the very message, also poured forth pain and torment. His anguish and heartache also brought the experience of exultation that lifted her listeners to behold the full glory of eroticism and amorous carnality.
Arabi essentially sees El-Qasabgi as Umm Kolthoum's necessary accessory. Her quintessential characteristic was spiritual strength, and this comes across in Arabi's portrayals of her performances. El-Qasabgi's distinction was unswerving loyalty and devotion. But then she had countless devotees. Umm Kolthoum led the hosts of heaven. She was the embodiment of the very heirloom of Arab cultural heritage, even as Gamal Abdel-Nasser raised high the political mantle. She, too, was his mantra.
"I am a Nasserist," Arabi ponders proudly. "I am a Pan-Arabist." Pan-Arabism colours his political perspective.
Contemporary Syrian art is not properly presented internationally. Painting Umm Kolthoum on stage comes naturally to a committed Pan-Arabist for she was the loudspeaker of this particular political phenomenon and Syria played and still plays a crucial part in the Pan-Arab rostrum. When he paints Umm Kolthoum in her peculiar political proscenium he is painting Syria as much as he is Egypt.
"An artist cannot capture in a painting the bounteous drama in drab colour the full spectacle of 'La Symphonie Fantastique' of Hector Berlioz. Nor can I paint Umm Kolthoum's Al-Hubb Sukara (Love Is Drunkenness) in beige or grey."
Arabi paints Umm Kolthoum in resplendent colour to match the resonance of her electrifying voice. He paints in plush purples and sapphire blue, canary and ruby red and bold Islamic green.
He also paints her musicians with meticulous detail. She assigned to her men distinct offices and made them all angels administering to her every need. Each of her musicians excelled with his instrument.
"El-Sombati attracts my interest."
Arabi's paintings are not portraits of Umm Kolthoum. They are projections of her in action, performing on stage. There is a dancing quality to his work. At times she appears to prance on the audience. And she capers, clutching her hallmark handkerchief and swaying to the music.
No commercial microphone could withstand the strength and power of her voice and she was obliged, therefore, to stand a metre or two away from the microphone, which is graphically reflected in Arabi's paintings. She stands apart from the thwarted dream of Pan-Arab unity even though she was an amazon.
Cubism and abstraction cannot inculcate the truism that Umm Kolthoum was capable of producing 14,000 vibrations per second with her astoundingly malleable vocal cords.
Geometric abstraction most certainly cannot. Expressionism, too, cannot.
Arabi's paintings of Umm Kolthoum in different poses and at different periods of her life reflect her political convictions. His striking works are the immortality of Umm Kolthoum brought to light, resplendent in colour.
Just as materiality is the inverted image of spirituality, so Umm Kolthoum's persona is the very antithesis of the trajectory of the oppressed Arab woman. The Lady is the Light.
She opens her mouth, an orifice that is different in every picture, as if she is singing a different song. Asaad's exhibition is the culmination of the intermingling and the alternating of his experimentation with different styles over the past four decades. "The intensity of my longing to paint intimate nudes again, whether placental, hermaphrodite, or reflected in a mirror, is akin to my nostalgia for the fantastical architecture of the traditional city of my childhood," Asaad extrapolates in a philosophical tone.
From beginning to end, this allegorical, singing Umm Kolthoum typifies a certain historical period of Egypt's and the Arab world's history.
Redemption hymns and the physique of Umm Kolthoum come to life in Asaad's paintings. "The body has been used as a sign ever since the frescoes of the Prehistoric period and Sumerian, Akkadian and Egyptian statues of fecundity." In this particular exhibition of Umm Kolthoum, Asaad uses different poses of the Arab world's foremost singer to project the true passion of Pan-Arabism.
Her emotive vocal impact is reflected in the vibrant colours of these oil paintings. In 1932 she embarked on a tour of the Fertile Crescent, performing in Damascus, Baghdad, Beirut and Tripoli. Against this backlit drama, Asaad, this Odyssey of the Orient, the artist produces a skillfully woven narrative.
Umm Kolthoum memorised the Quran at the tender age of 10, she was after all the daughter of a Muslim minstrel. Riad El-Sombati composed her music to the lyrics of poets. Melodic lines define the parameters of Arab nationalism and the romanticism of the fascism Asaad speaks of.
Raq El-Habib (The Lover's Heart Softens) is history in the grand style of the peculiar Arab pathos.
She raised eyebrows by singing a verse that describes Prophet Mohamed as "The Imam of Socialists" and this was the age of national socialism in the Arab world.
Isaalou Qalbi (Ask My Heart) written by Ahmed Shawqi, the Prince of Poets, and composed by El-Sombati is the culmination of her melodramatic melancholia. Amal Hayati(Hope of My Life) is projected in cheerful primary colours and bold strokes.
Anta Omri (You Are My Life, 1964), and Inta Al-Hobb(You Are Love, 1965) speak of the unspoken and are simultaneously straight out of the Gospel according to Saint John. They are also reminiscent of the Sufi poems of the mediaeval Islamic mystic Rabaa Al-Adawiya. Hagartak (I Have Forsaken You) is more mundane. Each painting is a song, and a story. Betfakar Fi Meen?(Who Are You Thinking Of? 1963) is dressed in red, an angry scarlet.
Hadith Al-Rouh (Sayings Of The Soul 1967) is a song of introspection and retrospection. The colours therefore are more muted. Min Agl Aynayk(For Your Eyes, 1972) and Toof We Shoof(Wander and Watch 1963) delineate the restlessness of the contemporary Arab soul. Such wanderlust is not above criticism.
Ibrahim's Nagi's poem Al-Atlal (The Ruins) composed by El-Sombati premiered in 1966 and was considered by many critics to be her best song ever.
The famous composer and oudist Zakaria Ahmed, who first invited her to Cairo, is also featured as a ghost in these paintings. He is chalky white, or is it my imagination?
Umm Kolthoum is the embodiment of the modern Arab nationalism. Her old classical repertoire reflects the contemporary appeal of the old. The famous poet Ahmed Rami who wrote 137 of her songs features in some of the works of Arabi. He is an elusive figure, though, animated by a sentiment painted with sweep, verve and an uneven texture.
For a painter that has made his reputation with nudes, even though Umm Kolthoum is fully clothed in all his depictions of her on stage, her personality is laid bare.
The Solo Exhibition by Syrian artist Assad Arabi in Ayyam Gallery, Zamalek, runs through to 20 January. Tel: 27365858