Ministry of Education of the Republic of Azerbaijan Baku International Multiculturalism Centre Azerbaijani Multiculturalism Textbook for Higher Education
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4.6.3. Fine Art
The contemporary art of Azerbaijan is built on centuries of tradition, which encompass miniature painting, rock engraving in Qobustan, petroglyphs in Gamiqaya, and balbal, ancient stone monuments of the Turks. Azerbaijan’s art has also benefited from the achievements of classical Russian and Western European art, and experienced modernism and post-modernism. The contemporary art of Azerbaijan combines the social and cultural
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features of folklore and advanced professional style into a single whole.
The traditions of multiculturalism in the fine art of Azerbaijan have ancient roots. Because of its geographical position Azerbaijan has always been at the intersection of various artistic traditions, styles and aesthetics. The development of miniature painting in Azerbaijan in the Middle Ages is a good example of this. In the early stages, Uighur artists and the Baghdad school of miniatures exposed miniature painting in Azerbaijan to the Arab-Mesopotamian style. The late 15th and early 16th centuries are considered the classical stage in the development of the miniature art of Azerbaijan. During this period local miniature schools emerged and developed in Herat, Qazvin and Isfahan. Common features of plot and style were observed in the art of book miniatures. After the occupation of Herat by the Uzbek ruler Shaybani khan almost all the miniature artists there, including Kamaladdin Behzad, moved to Bukhara. Therefore, Behzad’s work had an equal influence on the cultural heritage of both the Azerbaijani and Uzbek people. Later Herat was included in the Safavid Empire and a new school of miniatures was founded in Tabriz by the prominent Azerbaijani artist Sultan Mahammad. Thus, the miniature school of Tabriz influenced the miniature art of the entire Middle East. This influence can be seen in the Indian school of miniatures during the reign of the Mughals as well. Realist, or figurative, art emerged in Azerbaijan in the mid-19th century and continued into the 20th century. Prominent Realist painters included Mirza Qadim Irevani, Mir-Mohsun Navvab and Ali bay Huseynzada. Ali bay Huseynzada (1865-1940) laid the foundations of art printing, theatre design and fine art studies in Azerbaijan. He also played an important role in shaping the national ideology of independent Azerbaijan, defining the symbolism of the colours of the national flag of independent Azerbaijan. Huseynzada had a brilliant mind and was a popular Turkologist, writer and public figure. His paintings display a visual synthesis of European style and traditional cultural thinking; for example, his portrait of the Sheikh ul-Islam of the Caucasus, Ahmad Salyani (1900), and his painting of Bibi-Heybat Mosque near Baku (1907). A prominent artist of the second half of the 20th century Mikayil Abdullayev (1921-2000) made an outstanding contribution to multiculturalism in Azerbaijani art. In 1956 he paid his first visit to Italy to attend the 28th International Biennale in Venice. During that trip he also visited Rome, Florence and Milan. Inspired by the trip, he created a series of gouache paintings entitled Through the Eyes of a Bakuvian. The series includes In the Venetian Sun, The Spanish Quarter (in Venice), Rome. Father and Florence. Mother. As N. Habibov writes, ‘In his Florence paintings, Abdullayev depicts this noisy city with plenty of phaetons, monks driving fashionable fast cars, watermelon sellers and sad funeral ceremonies, “just like in old Baku” as Mikayil Abdullayev himself said.’ Mikayil Abdullayev also painted series of Indian, Hungarian and Polish paintings. He was fortunate to travel widely. In 1957, he made a three-month trip to India, visiting Delhi, Calcutta, Jaipur and Agra. The trip made such an impression on him that he spent four years working on his Indian series. The series includes the paintings A Student Girl from Calcutta, Bengali Girls, Nipa with her Brothers, Mother Feeding her Baby, Jaipuri Women and Rajastani Women and many others based on over one hundred studies. All of them are full of the Indian atmosphere, colours and national character. To great decorative effect, he painted exquisite women’s saris, typical to India.
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Mikayil Abdullayev also visited several Hungarian cities, where he met artists and writers and went to museums and theatres. His Hungarian series of paintings includes striking portraits Sculptor Zsigmond Kisfaludi Strobl, Ilona and Actress Stefani Moldovan on the one hand, and multiple landscapes and genre scenes on the other hand – Morning on the Danube, View from Gellert Mountain, Pier at Lake Balaton, In Koshut Street, In an Artist’s Family and In a Danube Café. Almost all the well-known artists of the second half of the 20th century painted several series of paintings of foreign countries. The prominent Azerbaijani artists Boyukagha Mirzazada, Salam Salamzada, Togrul Narimanbayov and Tahir Salahov created memorable work in this regard. Boyukagha Mirzazada (1921-2007) is known in Azerbaijani art for his skilful portraits, but he also painted fine urban scenes. His Czechoslovak series of paintings focused on Prague with its Gothic architecture, church spires, streets and squares. The works in this series include Prague, Prague Street, A View of Prague, Prague Landscape, On the Banks of the Vltava and Charles Bridge, all of which were completed by 1959. Salam Salamzada (1908-97) was one of the first painters to introduce Azerbaijani art-lovers to the Arab world. He was honoured to receive the International Nasser Award. His series of paintings Through the Arab Countries was exhibited in Baku, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Tbilisi, Dushanbe and Tripoli. Salam Salamzada painted the series following trips to Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon in 1960-61. These paintings include the depiction of architectural monuments, such as The Temple of Princess Hatshepsut (1967) and Rashidiya Street, Baghdad (1961); industrial views such as Construction of the Aswan Dam (1967) and Soviet Experts in Feth (1969), and genre compositions such as Banana 210
Seller, On the Road and Arab Children (all created in 1961). The series also features important portraits of Arab artists and writers, such as poet Muhammad al-Jawahiri (1961), sculptor Gamal el-Sigini (1969) and writer Abd al-Rahman al-Khamisi. The life and work of Tahir Salahov (born 1928) is bound up with many important aspects of multiculturalism in Azerbaijani fine art. He has always been open to foreign cultures and is well travelled. His first trips to France and Italy made a particularly strong impression on him. Tahir Salahov founded what is known as the strict style, and did not lose his self-confidence when he painted the Italian and French landscapes. ‘These landscapes are strict and serious: the architectural forms are large scale, not detailed, and there are many carefully chosen greys and browns.’ Tahir Salahov worked for a long time in the USSR Union of Artists and Academy of Art and did a great deal to introduce the Soviet audience to the works of famous artists such as Picasso, Bacon, Tamayo, Uecker, Tinguely, Manzu, Moore, Giacometti, Rosenquist, Rauschenberg, Morandi and Dali. As an art critic said, ‘Tahir Salahov is a well-known figure in world culture.’ His life and work are bound up with deep multicultural processes in the fine art of Azerbaijan. ‘Salahov mastered the manner and stylistic thinking of European painting and quickly became a major artist, but he is a deeply Azerbaijani artist and this forms the basis of his artistic language.’ In summer, he always visits his studio in the village of Nardaran, on the shores of the Caspian Sea on the Absheron peninsula. Salahov’s boundless creative energy has led him to paint new series of foreign paintings since Azerbaijan regained its independence. He created the series Across China (1994) and Across Spain (2005) and painted portraits of the actor Maximilian Schell and artist Robert Rauschenberg, and a triptych Meeting
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