In his memoirs, “Egypt, Abla…The Formative Years” (Dar Al-Shorouk), the Egyptian visual artist Mohamed Abla takes us to a time that convinced him that art “must be at the service of the people,” and that the artist must “interact with the social and political issues of his society.”
Therefore, he is proud that he participated in writing the Constitution of Egypt in 2013, “at a terrible time in the history of the country.” He is also proud to have founded the “Fayoum Art Center – Caricature Museum,” which gave opportunities to young people from different artistic circles to interact with the experience, benefit from it, and talk about it for free.
This center was established in Fayoum (west of Cairo) in 1993, and there is a museum that exhibits more than two thousand cartoons by Egyptian and foreign artists.
Abla says in the book’s introduction: “Through our work in the center, we found wider angles of vision, and looked at the gaps and gaps that our reality suffers in all our cultural and artistic situation.”
Through the memories contained in this book, Abla focuses on his years of study at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Alexandria, “and the paradox of reality scattered within it, especially confusion and the main questions and issues which will raise the need for answers.”
This confusion – as Abla says – is inseparable from the overwhelming onslaught of technology and the media and information revolution we are experiencing, and what has been made worse by the emergence of artificial intelligence as a rival to men. This confusion, in Abla’s opinion, is now only a small gap that can be closed, but has expanded and interwoven in circles and complexity, beyond the capacity of the -the mind to think, and the ability of the senses to penetrate beyond things. “
Documents with drawing
The “story” begins in December 1973, with Mohamed Abla standing at the “Glem Tram” station in Alexandria, after all the tracks were previously blocked. Then he ended up at Cairo Airport in the summer of 1978, preparing to travel to Spain with the aim of further academic studies.
He was carrying a file of his papers that he had withdrawn from the College of Applied Arts in Cairo, to send to the College of Fine Arts in Alexandria. But the college representative told him that transfer from one college to another can only be done through the coordination office. After receiving high school, Abla had applied to the Military College, at the request of his father, but he did not finish the entrance exams. Because he did not like to study there because his curriculum was full of theoretical and engineering subjects, which he found at that time so complicated, and immersion in them could hinder him from his interest in drawing, which he had been famous for since he was a student. student in elementary school.
The talented young man
After the representative of the College of Fine Arts refused to receive his file, Abla thought of finding the artist Saif Wanly (1907 – 1979) in the hope that he would accept his mediation, knowing that Wanly worked as a professor of oil painting at the College of Fine Arts in Alexandria when it was founded in the summer of 1957. He also worked as a consultant at the “Palaces of Culture” in Alexandria and was is president of the National Association of Fine Arts.
He and his younger brother, Adham Wanly, were considered among the most famous visual artists in Egypt, and their studio was a sanctuary for artists and intellectuals for more than 40 years, even after death Adham and Seif continued in his artistic career.
After some trouble, Abla managed to meet Saif Wanli at his house and told him about his problem. Wanli didn’t say that as a compliment. After Abla met the dean of the college, Kamel Mustafa, and showed him his photos and told him about his problem, he took the application papers from him and wrote on them: “The college will accept his papers because he is an artist. ”
The years of university study in a large area of Abla’s memoirs are dedicated to recounting the most important stations of his formative years, followed by others about the rest of the stations of his life, which is full of enthusiasm for various forms of art and art. literature, and a confident stance on various political and social issues.
Those formative years were filled with many changes and transformations, as politics clashed with religion and reflected on the details of daily life, according to what was said in a word behind the book cover, designed by Hani. Saleh, leaning on a portrait of Muhammad Abla in front of an oil painting. In these memories, Abla reveals, in his own words, how he and the artists of his generation were able to interact with the turbulent years of the seventies, and they put together his anxious questions in spirit an activist who wanted to engage in many. artistic and human experiences.
Heart of a wolf
He was in the fifth grade of primary school, when his paternal grandmother gave him a wolf’s heart, which he ate after cooking, “and then I went out in my life, without fear. ” He says: “My grandmother Zakia’s stories were reflected in my works and remained in my imagination, and entered the creatures that I draw, of course, no the conversation I hear about my works regarding my passion for magical reality far away These stories. During my initiation, I painted many pictures that are similar to what the critics say.
As for his mother, when she noticed his connection to drawing, she would protect him from his father’s outbursts, and she would give him signs to warn him when he came home, “so that I can hide my drawings under the sofa or carpet. He says that he took a lot from his father, the first thing was his confidence, his love of adventure, his temperament of waking up early, and his love of travel. In those formative years, Abla worked for a short time, before traveling to Spain, as a gold painter in the stamp service.
Regarding this stage, he writes: “I used to draw jewelry during the day, and at night, I would draw Cairo, its streets and neighborhoods.” He says he was lucky; “Because I met Hamed Nada during my student years and saw him draw and give his guidance to the students, and my relationship with him crystallized after him guide me to explore the graves of nobles and understand their artistic logic.”
Among those he influenced was the sculptor Abdel Badie, whom he considers “the legend of Egypt,” because “he was not satisfied with his native talent, but he also wanted to educate himself in it the high artistic culture.” He says that Abdel Badie did not draw preparatory pictures for his statues “The idea of the statue was brewing in his mind, and he started to implement it immediately. ” And also Saeed Al-Sadr, “who revived the art of Egyptian pottery, after a break of hundreds of years, and in 1952 won the first prize among the makers of the world. ”
“With art, I got to know the solitude and solitude that an artist has to work and listen to his inner situation despite that solitude, art opened me a perspective broad and paths I did not expect. ” This is how Abla summarizes his relationship with his arts, which is a bond of love, passion and life.
