Lukman exhibition marries poetry with paint

Ary Hermawan ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Sat, 03/01/2008 12:38 PM  |  Lifestyle

Painter-cum-poet Lukman Sh owes the ancient Roman poet and satirist, Quintus Horatius Flaccus, for declaring the adage ut pictura poesis (as is painting so is poetry). The simile, Lukman says, has long been his creed as an artist.

Writing and painting since he was in junior high school, the 47-year-old artist -- who holds a degree in sanitary engineering from the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) and works at the State Ministry of Public Housing -- said the basic elements of poetry and painting were virtually the same.

"Poema pictura loquens, pictura poema silens (poetry is a speaking picture, painting a silent [mute] poetry)," he said, quoting the dictum of Simonides of Keos that was made popular by Plutarch.

"A picture expresses ideas through compositions of lines, spaces, forms and colors, while poem does the same thing through a composition of words," he added.

The earliest form of painting in the pre-historic age, he said, underscored the close relationship between the two distinctive forms of art.

"Before a single letter was conventionally given a certain meaning, drawing had already been used as a medium to deliver a message," he said.

Poetry-painting (or is it better called poetic painting?) is thus not a novel expression. Horace mentioned it more than two millenniums ago and Leonardo da Vinci echoed the idea a millennium later, saying "painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen".

"Even though it is no new expression, it is rare to find an art exhibition that offers a mixture of art pieces that are both visibly and emotionally enjoyable and are created by a painter who is also a poet," he said, referring to his first poetry-painting exhibition at Gallery Elcanna in Jakarta from Feb. 23 -29 and at Gedung Merah Putih in Surabaya, East Java from March 6 - 11.

Lukman did more than merely transform his poems into paintings. He mixed them; he painted as well as wrote his poems on the canvas. And he knew he was wagering with the experiment.

"This is of course very risky. The two art forms could destroy each other. The power of the painting can be weakened by the presence of the poem and vice versa. Furthermore, the lines of the poem are simply written on the canvas and therefore prone to distracting the focus of the picture," he said.

The same risk shades the trend of poetry musicalization. One might argue that the musicalization of poetry should be more than simply reading aloud a poem or using it as song lyric.

Pianist-cum-composer Ananda Sukarlan, for instance, chose to transform Sapardi Djoko Damono's poetry into a poetic musical composition, leaving its verbal aspects.

So, why did Lukman turn his blank canvas into something he could paint poems on? Isn't it enough to create a poetic painting without installing a poem on it?

He said he was convinced that by mixing poetry and painting in the same medium, a wider aesthetical dimension could unfold.

"I am taking the risk," he said.

Curator Ipong Purnama Sidhi called Lukman an expressionist, who liked to display symbols and substances unrealistically and hoped people would be able to grasp the "inner side" of the artist.

"I think his best work is Gelisah (Restless). It was created freely, independently, lightly and expressively," he said.

Lukman, he said, appeared to lean toward German expressionism when painting Bumi Tempat Kita Menangis (The Earth on Which We Cry).

"The colors are heavy and dim as a result of directly mixing two to three colors on the canvas," he said.

The dark poem written on the canvas intensifies the expressionistic style of the painting: "In the darkness karaoke -- room serving huffs of erotic dance in slum areas with garbage spreading out and sewage everywhere."

Ipong does not think the poems on the canvas destroy the focus of the picture.

"The two art forms support each other, although the text of the poems (written in small characters) is sometimes eclipsed by the picture. He should put bigger text so it is more provoking," he said.

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