Shakir Hassan Al Said

Shakir Hassan Al Said (شاكر حسن ال سعيد) (1925–2004), an Iraqi painter, sculptor and writer, is considered one of Iraq's most innovative and influential artists.

An artist, philosopher, art critic and art historian, he was actively involved in the formation of two important art groups that influenced the direction of post-colonial art in Iraq.

He, and the art groups in which he was involved, shaped the modern Iraqi art movement and bridged the gap between modernity and heritage.

His theories charted a new Arabic art aesthetic which allowed for valuations of regional art through lenses that were uniquely Arabic rather than Western.

Al Said was born in Samawah, Iraq; a rural area.

He spent most of his adult life living and working in Bagdad.

His rural upbringing was an important source of inspiration for his art and his philosophies.

He wrote about his daily trek to school in the following terms:

"'On my way from school, I used to see scores of faces, brown faces, painful and toiling faces. How close they were to my heart! They pressed me and I passed them again and again. They suffered and I felt their suffering. The peasants with their loose belts were pricked by thorns. They were so close to my heart!'"

In 1948, he received a degree in social science from the Higher Institute of Teachers in Baghdad and in 1954, a diploma in painting from the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad where he was taught by Jawad Saleem.

This group was part of a broader Islamic art movement that emerged independently across North Africa and parts of Asia in the 1950s and known as the hurufiyah art movement.

Hurufiyah refers to the attempt by artists to combine traditional art forms, notably calligraphy as a graphic element within a contemporary artwork.

Hurufiyah artists rejected Western art concepts, and instead searched for a new visual languages that reflected their own culture and heritage.

These artists successfully transformed calligraphy into a modern aesthetic, which was both contemporary and indigenous.

Al Said, used his writing, lectures and his involvement in various art groups to shape the direction of the modern Iraqi art movement and bridged the gap between modernity and heritage.

In so doing, Al Said "charted a new Arabo-Islamic art aesthetic, and thus initiated a possible alternative for art valuating for local and regional art other than those allowed through an exclusionary Western canon of art history."

Al Said's early work reveals the influence of European avant-garde art movements - particularly expressionism and cubism.

However, his work also drew on his Arabic-Islamic heritage and popular culture.

With Jawad Saleem, he co-founded Jama'et Baghdad lil Fann al-Hadith (The Baghdad Modern Art Group) in 1951; one of the most unusual arts movements in the Middle East in the post–World War II, that aimed to achieve an artistic approach both modern and embracing of tradition.

This specific approach was called Istilham al-turath (Seeking inspiration from tradition), considered as "the basic point of departure, to achieve through modern styles, a cultural vision".

These artists were inspired by the 13th-century Baghdad School and the work of calligraphers and illustrators such as Yahya Al-Wasiti who was active in Baghdad in the 1230s.

They believed that the Mongol invasion of 1258 represented a "break in the chain of pictorial Iraqi art" and wanted to recover lost traditions.

Al Said wrote the manifesto for the Baghdad Modern Art Group and read it at the group's first exhibition in 1951.

It was the first art manifesto to be published in Iraq.

Scholars often consider this event to the birth of the Iraqi modern art movement.

He continued his studies at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris until 1959, where he was taught by Raymond Legueult.

During his stay in Paris, he discovered Western modern art in galleries and Sumerian art at the Louvre.

After his return to Baghdad in 1959, Al Said studied the work of Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti, sufism and Mansur Al-Hallaj.

He gradually abandoned figurative expressions and centered his compositions on Arabic calligraphy.

His work evolved from the 1960s after he began to focus on Sufism in the 1960s.

From this time, he began to integrate Arabic letters as a visual element in his compositions.

After the death of Saleem in 1961, al-Said headed the group.

Al Said also wrote the manifesto for an art group he founded in 1971.

After suffering from a spiritual crisis, the artist broke away from the Baghdad Modern Art group and formed the Al Bu'd al Wahad (or the One Dimension Group)", which was deeply infused with Al Said's theories about the place of art in nationalism. The objectives of the One Dimension Group were multi-dimensional and complex. At the most basic level, the group rejected two and three-two dimensional artwork in favor of a single "inner dimension". The group was an assemblage of all the artists Al-Said knew worked with Arabic Calligraphy, and as such the group focused on the exploration of different values of the Arabic script of graphic, plastic, linguistic, and symbolic works within modern art. In practice, a single inner dimension was difficult to manifest because most artworks are produced on two-dimensional surfaces. At a more profound level, "one dimension" refers to "eternity".

Al Said explained: Despite only mounting only one exhibition,"The One-Dimension" group (in its creation and sustenance) was Shakir Hassan Al-Said's lasting contribution to contemporary art.

"'From a philosophical point of view, the One-Dimension is eternity, or an extension of the past to the time before the existence of pictorial surface; to the non-surface. Our consciousness of the world is a relative presence. It is our self-existence while our absence is our eternal presence.'"

Al Said actively searched for relationships between time and space; and for a visual language that would connect Iraq's deep art traditions with modern art methods and materials.

The incorporation of callij (calligraphy) letters into modern artworks was an important aspect of this.

The letter became part of Al Said's transition from figurative art to abstract art.

Arabic calligraphy was charged with intellectual and esoteric Sufi meaning, in that it was an explicit reference to a Medieval theology where letters were seen as primordial signifiers and manipulators of the cosmos.