The Landscape of Palestine in Arabic Art(continued)

by Samia A. Halaby

Another early twentieth century landscape painter of Palestine known more for his icons than for his landscapes was Khallil Halaby of Al-Quds. There is a set of murals by this artist which cover entirely the wall and ceiling surfaces of the Syrian Orthodox Church in Beit Lahem (Bethlehem). These were complete in 1940 and contain the traditional background landscapes typical of biblical themes. Another Halaby needs to be mentioned when landscape painting of Palestine is under consideration. That painter is Sophia Halaby who recently passed away due to a heart attack. Sophia was a serious professional painter who studied in Italy and Europe and who spent her life in Al-Quds. The landscape and the mountains surrounding this city of her birth and her death are a primary subject of her lifetime of work.

During the second half of the Twentieth century and in recent decades the Palestinian revolution has given new energy to the art of painting and of landscape in Palestine. Palestinians here and in exile are making great strides and powerful art and much of it represents the land of Palestine.

The image of the land of Palestine in the paintings of contemporary artists has many sources feeding its development. There is influence from European painting of the 19th century. But there are also the qualities of organization from ancient Iraq and Egypt which seem to be a permanent distinguishing quality in the pictorial art of the Arab World. I show the work of several artists among them: Tamam Al Akhal, Afaf Arafat , Ibrahime Ghannam, Mona Hatoum, Burhan Karkutli, Sliman Mansour, Muhammad Al Rakoui, Walid Abu Shakra, Omar Shammout, Laila Shawa, Suha Shoman, Naser Soumi, Vera Tamari, Vladimir Tamari, and Samia Zaru.16

The paintings of Ibrahime Ghannam are ones which in our century would be most typically accepted as landscapes of Palestine. Not only do they possess the illusionist syntax of land below and distant horizon and sky above but they possess the loving sentiment and detailed knowledge of village life and the life of those who till the land. We feel all the wealth of our memories of Palestine when we see the painting "yawm al hisad" (Day of Harvest). It is easy to revel and relax mentally in the golden wheat and dream of dark green fig trees. A wonderful painting might sometimes be an easy chair for our mind. It is a sentiment which was first expressed by the French painter Matisse.

The installation work by Vera Tamari with the Mediterranean shores of Yafa as its background titled "Oracles from the Sea" is especially wonderful. It brings to us a yearning for the past while it contains promises of the future. Sixteen bas-relief faces made of clay stand at the shores as though they have after long years returned to look at our Yafa and witness what has happened. But it is in the idea of return and most of all in the fact that they are boldly located on the shores of Yafa that gives great power to this work. There is a measure of assertiveness in going back to the shores of Yafa and lay there her work and claim it with her art as our heritage. This is precisely what is important about this work and why it is significant for the future. Vera Tamari's is a landscape that is unlike the restful familiarity of Ibrahime Ghannam. It contains a newer language but is nevertheless a landscape in its essential attributes.

Two years ago I visited BirZeit University and worked for three weeks with Vera Tamari and her students. True to their visual heritage these students made amazing bas-relief pictures in papier mache of the land of Palestine. They used the language of abstraction. The relationship of the land to their work is unmistakable. I show two examples and one of them is juxtaposed with a photograph of Ein Samia so that the resemblance of land and art can be demonstrated without doubt. The most wonderful moment of that experience for me was when three of them had entered the class room one day with a wheelbarrow full of stone on which to mold the papier mache and one of them proudly declared: "These are the stones of our land."

There is an awareness of landscape among the children of our refugee camps that is heightened by the tragic experiences imposed by Israelis. I show two such drawings by children one of the Indifadah and one of The Battle of AlKarameh. The second one is drawn by a child at least one generation after the battle itself where Palestinian refugees using simple armaments beat back a highly armed and mechanized Israeli invasion. This is a landscape of pride and tradition passed orally from parents to children.

(Figure 4.) "Battle of AlKarameh" painted in 1995 by a child from the Bak'a refugee camp in Jordan. This child is too young to have experienced the battle but received the information from his parents indicating the power of the Palestinian oral tradition.

With this the landscape art of the youngest of our artists I bring this section of my paper to a close. I would like to make a few observations in conclusion.

In the art history of the West there is a policy practiced, the purpose of which is to rob us of the dignity which comes from being heirs to our own cultural history. This facilitates the work of robbing us of our natural resources and the fruits of our work. This policy is the habitual misnaming of our art which robs us of credit for it while giving it the appearance of being fragmented and incoherent. The sense of fragmentation is created by giving it numerous and confusing names. I have just begun collecting all these names and I have quickly collected over three hundred such names and I expect to reach seven or eight hundred such labels when I have spent more time.

Concurrent with this miss-labeling policy is a studied avoidance of using the proper national identification for our art and the art of our ancestors. You will rarely find the name Arab or Arabic in Western art history. As one example if you look up the title Arab under art and architecture in the card catalog of the New York Public Library you will find only one book and that is because this one book uses the word Arabic in its title. It is a huge indictment of educational and cultural institutions that I could only find one book in this category and it is a further indictment that only one book in the collection bears the word Arabic in its title. Of course there are many books on the subject if one looks under "decoration" or "Islamic".

The treatment of our art on the basis of religion is supported and itself supports the practice of presenting the land of Palestine as the "land of the Bible." By presenting it as the land of the Bible and by calling its biblical names during prayer every Sunday morning, Western Christians have come to believe that they own this land and that the "heathen" Arabs who believe in "Allah" instead of "God" are foreign intruders. So it is best, they think, that the Jews have it since they are mentioned so often in the Bible. Of course economic exploitation is completely veiled in such discourse. The "Old Testament" concept of the land of Palestine in art is amply demonstrated by a prejudicial catalogue printed to accompany an exhibition of the work of Palestinian artists in Stockholm presented by the Swedish government supposedly to help support Palestinians.17

Another observation is a message to the young artists of Palestine in particular and the Arab World in general. That being that, there is a precious history in the Arab World that is hidden from our consciousness due to an inadequate educational system. The Israelis have imposed their own interpretation of our history on the world and on many of us. They decide educational curriculum for many of our students and their intentions are not to our benefit. They have, in the recent past, also imposed severe school closures which have harmed us. For this reason it has become a serious duty that we pursue learning in general and our own history in particular. And even while our study should be international in scope and include Western and Zionist material, we must maintain independent thought and learn to see through the political intentions of the distortions of Western and Zionist art history and propaganda.

This learning should result in the care and proper evaluation of our architecture and the geometric abstractions contained within them. The very special value of this as it resides in the monument of The Dome of The Rock and other monuments like it is impossible to quantify. There is a tendency to try to label this as a decorative art within an incoherent architectural tradition. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is also a tendency to regard mosaic finds in the land of Palestine, Syria, and Jordan as an inconvenience to the building of roads and private homes. And even when these mosaics are preserved and documented there is a tendency to think of them as a product of European influence rather than our own work and art. These monuments are in danger and it is our duty to preserve them and to document both our historic arts and those of modern times and to come to know their significance as our history to the history of art worldwide.18

Another observation is the tendency in the West to limit information in the mass media about Palestine and The Arab World to peasant life and traditions. Our peasantry is being destroyed brutally while funds are made available to romanticize their life and preserve their culture. This is accompanied by a total silence about the destruction of our cities such as Yafa, Haifa, Al-Quds, and others. I urge non-government organizations (NGOs) to pay attention to this fact and to be aware that in the West there is the sentiment that the destruction of peasant life is OK since in a sense "we are helping them to modernize." But destruction of cities and city culture is not perceived as acceptable. Thus funding is made available to films about peasant life or for the selective preservation and documentation of village architecture. On the other hand, funds to tell the story of the burgeoning cultural and political life of Palestinian cities during the thirties, or the incredible intellectual and political developments in the refugee camps, would be almost impossible to gain. Funds for the preservation of the architecture of our cities which are now being mercilessly destroyed by Israel would me near impossible to gain.

We will not always be ruled by the Israelis and Imperialism. The day when we can freely pursue the development of ourselves will come and may come much sooner than most people imagine. I wish to share with you my very strong optimism about our future and my great respect of our incredible and long history with this, our land of Palestine.

ADDENDUM

Maybe it is that those who own the capacity and the power to picture the land with the newest technologies can claim to own it. But although I believe that we who have lived with it and are most intimate with it will picture it best and most lovingly; still yet, it is interesting to take notice of an unusual example of images of the land of Palestine.

Recently I saw in the Wall Street Journal an article wherein it was described that the U.S. government has banned satellite-imaging firms from taking high-resolution images of Israel.19 Satellites equipped with "one meter" resolution cameras won't be allowed to use those cameras to take photographs of Israel. No other country receives such an exemption. It leads you to understand more fully how intimately tied together is the U.S. and Israeli military and how militaristic are the goals behind the state of Israel. Obviously any benefit which results from satellite imaging is to be withheld from Palestinians who may even be too poor to pay for them. Yet here we have another landscape image of Palestine which serves the oppressor's power and not our own.

And with this point about satellite imaging I would like to address one of the ambitions of this symposium, that being the question of how to tie the various pieces of Palestine together - the various little bantustans of Palestine wherein an entire society is held prisoner. We are mislead by the naming process. Just as the history of the art of The Arab World is fragmented and made to disappear by the use of hundreds of names, so the naming of Palestine as a state is misleading. If we are not completely sovereign with our own constitution and our own armed forces and if we have no control whatsoever over our economy, over taxation, education, trade, etc. then we are not a free nation. We are a heavily oppressed nation.

The strongest glue to put the parts together is contact with and confidence in international working class organizations ranging from unions of workers and teachers, to international cultural organizations and political parties. But an important beginning should be made in loud demands for democratic rights within Israel. A simple list requesting minimal democratic rights in a state touted to be so "democratic" exposes the criminal treatment of Palestinians within Israel while it exposes the fascist reality of Israel. These minimal rights would begin to tie the pieces together.

Some democratic demands follow:

1. The right to return to for all Palestinians who were forced to leave due to Israeli aggression and the right of return for their children.

2. Full rights of citizenship and the right of a passport. Equal rights before the law. End the special military laws.

3. The right to full reparation for stolen property, homes, and lands.

4. Reparation for political prisoners and for families of all those killed in prison or while under Israeli detention. Reparation for all those massacred during and after the 1948 war.

5. Freedom for all political prisoners

6. Freedom of speech and expression. Equal representation in all administrative bodies.

7. The right to equal access to housing. End "Jews only" settlements.

8. The right to work and to a living wage and equal access to jobs. Equal unemployment benefits for all workers.

9. Equal pay for equal work. End the severe exploitation of Arab workers.

10. End the increased taxation on Arab workers.

11. Equal transportation services to all Arab communities and villages. End all the closures. Equal rights to all transportation.

12. Equal freedom of movement. End the practice of limiting the movement of private cars through prejudiced and selective labeling of auto licenses. Equal right to free movement on all roadways.

13. End the brutal closure of Gaza. Freedom of work and movement for all workers in Gaza.

14. End all Zionist practices of ethnic Cleansing.

15. Stop the forced removal of our street names. Stop the forced application of foreign names to our cities and town and villages.

16. The right to preserve our language and the names of our streets and towns. End the replacement of our street names with Hebrew names.

17. We demand that all signs in all areas of Israel be in Arabic as well as in Hebrew presented in equal size.

18. Stop the attempt at robbing us of our city of Al-Quds.

19. Stop the inhuman demolition of Arab homes and farms.

20. Local community power of decision over all roadways through their communities. Stop the forced removal of peasant from their lands. Stop the willful destruction of Arab farms through the building of settler only roads and the uprooting of productive trees. Freedom to build on and improve farm lands.

21. Equal right to home and farm ownership. End the confiscation of Arab lands.

22. We demand the right of family unity. The right of all families to live undivided. End all laws which inflict separation of the family. End the separation of married couples.

23. The freedom to live where one works and work when one lives.

24. End the intermittent stoppage of food delivery to Arab communities.

25. End the willful destruction of our medical services. End the intermittent denial of access to medical care. Equal medical benefits for all.

26. Guaranteed safety from pogrom attacks by Jewish settlers on school children and communities. End the brutal attacks by Israeli Police and Israeli Soldiers

27. End the withholding of building and repair permits.

28. Full reparation for Arab families of those killed by Israeli settles and their pogroms against Arab neighborhoods.

29. The right to determine the educational curricula for our children.

30. End the racist educational practices of Israeli schools and media.

31. The right to education for all children.

32. The full benefits of taxation equal with Jewish communities.

33. End the grossly unequal distribution of water. Arab communities have a shortage of water while Jewish settlements have regularly irrigated green lawns.

34. We demand religious freedom and access to churches and mosques. We demand the right to freely rebuild and repair mosques and other places of worship. Stop the massacre of innocents in mosques. We demand full access to churches and mosques in Jerusalem for all Arabs. Open access to Al-Qud for all religions. End the perfidious closure of Al-Quds to Arab Christians and Moslems.

NOTES

1  Piotr Bienkowski, editor, "The Art of Jordan", Alan Sutton Publishing, United Kingdom, 1996, page 6.
2   Byzantium is, historically, the heir of the ancient Roman empire. It's capital and seat of power was Constantinople (Istanbul) and its home domain was the Turkish peninsula. The ruling elite were Roman in origin ruling over a population of tribal and city state social groupings including regionalist Greek cities and including the peoples of the ancient Hittite empire. These peoples are the ancestors of the modern Turks.
3   See the book "The Mosaics of Jordan" by Michele Piccirillo and published by the American Center of Oriental Research, Amman, Jordan, plate 129.
4   The script has been translated and read: "May the lord Jesus Christ bless this place and all among us who love him. Amen, because to him it is that Stephen sings. Abd Raythu (and) Habbiba, Amen."
5   See "The Great Painters of China" by Max Loehr, published by Harper & Row, New York, 1980, pages 11 & 12.
6   Al-Quds (Jerusalem) was founded several thousand years BC by the Jebusites whose name it bears in contemporay English. In Arabic the Jebusites are called AlYabbusiyyeen in plural, and the singular is a Yabbusi. They are one the ancient tribes of our Palestinian ancestry.
7   Built between 685 and 692 AD during the first Omayyad Empire. A good pictorial treatment of this architectural monument can be found in the book "The Dome of The Rock" by Said Nusseibeh and Oleg Grabar. Rizzoli, New York. The text of this book is prejudicial in that it spends far too much time dealing with Zionist claims on the land of Haram and presents no schientific basis for these presumption.
8   Built during 706 to 715 AD during the first Omayyad Empire.
9   During the lecture mosaic pictures from many churches are shown in slides. Some of these are the Church of The Map dating from the 6th century AD, Church of The Apostles 578 AD, Chapel of the Thwal Family, the Baptistery Chapel 492 AD, and the Crypt of Saint Elianes 595-96 AD, are all in Madaba. The Old Diakonikon 530 AD is at Mt. Nebo with its mosaics signed by three artists. The Church of The Holy Martyrs from the middle of the 6th century AD known as Khirbet al Muchayat at village of Nebo in modern Jordan. The Church of St. John dating from 531 AD and the Church of St. John dating from 531 AD are in Jerash. And the monastery of St. Catherine built by the Emperor Justinian in the Sinai. See the book "The Mosaics of Jordan" by Michele Piccirillo and published by the American Center of Oriental Research, Amman, Jordan
10   One of the most destructive Western scholars who specializes in Arabic art is Oleg Grabar. In book "The Formation of Islamic Art" published by Yale University Press, New Have, 1973, he goes so far as to declare that Arabic art is not art. On page 102 referring to Arabic architecture he writes "The deeper question that remains is whether, in the light of the evidence and hypotheses presented in this chapter, it is entirely appropriate to think of these monuments as works of art."
11   Exodus 20.4: "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images or any likenesses of anything that is in heaven or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth." This is one of the Ten Commandments.
12   An unpublished paper is available by the author on this subject titled: "Dimensions of Arabic Art: Time or Depth." Please contact the author for a copy or examine it on the World Wide Web at http://www.art.net/~samia beginning after January of 1999.
13   For example, the American historian of Arabic art, Oleg Grabar, in his book on the Dome of the is concerned with establishing Jewish and Israeli claims to Al-Quds and to the Grounds of The Dome of The Rock and disregards the incredible new ideas resident in the art under study. But this inability to understand the abstraction of the art of the Arab World combined with a political agenda which is hostile to us is not surprising from the academic scholars of the U.S.
14   See the book "Icones Melkites" published by Le Musee Nicolas Sursock with an introduction by Oleg Grabar, Beyrouth, 1969
15   A shocking example is one particular work by David Roberts who was a spy for Great Britain. It is a lithograph titled "Interview with the Viceroy of Egypt at his Palace at Alexandria March 12, 1939." The viceroy is Muhammad Ali of Egypt. The pictorial setting is typically 19th century romantic and clearly representing the average denomination of hack-art paraphernalia than any possible actual meeting place. These lithographs were printed by the thousand and hand tinted in the early 19th century by Roberts as a business enterprise. This and other Roberts pictures are highly sought and admired by Arab collectors.
16   Details of the artists of this century come from the Book by Ismail Shammout published by Ismail Shammout, Amman, 1989
17   Ulf Thomas Moberg, "Palestinian Art", catalog to an exhibition at the Konstakademien Vastra Galleriet Fredsgatan 12, Stockholm August 17, through September 20th, 1998, printed by Almqvist & Wiksell, Uppsala, 1988.
18   When I began doing work to prepare for this paper it seemed improbable both to me and to others that I would find a body of landscape art in the history of Palestine. Those whose help I sought could only suggest the 19th century work of the Orientalists who visited Palestine and painted our villages, our markets, and our old city centers. This lack of knowledge of a substantial tradition could only be due our own miss-education.
19   "U.S. Prohibits Some Satellite Imaging of Israel" The Wall Street Journal, Friday July 24, 1998, page A16

Copyright, Samia A. Halaby, 1998, All rights reserved. To request permission to reproduce any part of these words or pictures CLICK HERE.