Page 173 - Ahmed- Nawar
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ar's Drawings
The Art...the War...the Will of Life
He still looks at the world through the barrel of his rifle
Ahmed Nawar is one of the key figures in contemporary Egyptian art. His creative experience
illuminates the history of this art and bears witness to a life he lived in love with the homeland and
engaged in its issues. We can read the history of Egypt with its victories, failures, and dreams by
meditating on Nawar's experience, which was a living memory of this country; he was never that
artist isolated in his ivory tower wandering in his kingdom; he entered the life when he was a boy
as a scout leader, a young man as an adventurer traveler and a sniper soldier, and a man as a
great academic professor who taught many generations and then as a skilled administrator in the
field of cultural work. He contributed to the development of the Egyptian plastic movement. He
has retained a rare superiority in all of these roles.
Nawar took his diverse experiences permeating into his artistic experience full of humanitarian
and national issues without turning the artistic experience into a rhetorical tone that limits the
glow of the aesthetic form or hinders its growth, transformations, and unique structure. He is a
sharp-eyed artist with a keen vision, as it should be for a former sniper, for whom the moment
differentiates between life and death. He realized how art is social without falling into the yoke of
propaganda and directness, and how the artist is responsible, not an isolated bohemian. His bi-
ography reveals that he lived concerned about this country, fighting for it, even if there were many
forms of fighting. Despite the intellectual framework that governs Nawar's experience, and the
purposeful contents that frame it, it does not triumph over or lead the language of form. Nawar is
a high-class fine art builder who was able to create his unmistakable visual forms and vocabulary
styled with his imprint through a tremendous ability to imagine and pass the vocabulary of the
world through his internal filters.
Nawar's creativity is unique in painting art, which makes it the core of his creative experience.
Holding a comprehensive exhibition of his experience in painting means that we can easily con-
template the launch of that experience and the lines of its rise, brilliance, and various transfor-
mations. We also contemplate its structural features that move from the artist's art of painting to
the multiple paths of his other arts, such as engraving, painting, installation, sculpture, video art,
monuments, and others. Perhaps the art of drawing is the closest art to Nawar's personality, with
its clarity, decisiveness, vision, and boldness. His great appreciation for this art and his realization
of its importance prompted him to launch a special award bearing his name in the art of drawing,
which receives its fourth session this year; it is an award directed to young artists in art faculties in
Egypt. In my opinion, this comprehensive presentation of Nawar's experience in painting is an im-
portant educational aspect for art scholars, historians, and critics to trace the research, scientific
and critical experience of a great Egyptian artist who gave the art of painting an important space
in his creative experience for more than half a century.
The Power of Drawing
The strength of the art of drawing is the clarity and simplicity that accommodates the artist's vi-
sion. It is the necessary base for all arts and the most direct means for studying the cognitive ba-
sis of the aesthetic experience, and the most direct link between the hand, the eye, and the mind,
and the practice of smooth transition between them. It is the supporting means and the initial step
for capturing and forming the idea, and it is the artist's support in his creative experience and the
171
The Art...the War...the Will of Life
He still looks at the world through the barrel of his rifle
Ahmed Nawar is one of the key figures in contemporary Egyptian art. His creative experience
illuminates the history of this art and bears witness to a life he lived in love with the homeland and
engaged in its issues. We can read the history of Egypt with its victories, failures, and dreams by
meditating on Nawar's experience, which was a living memory of this country; he was never that
artist isolated in his ivory tower wandering in his kingdom; he entered the life when he was a boy
as a scout leader, a young man as an adventurer traveler and a sniper soldier, and a man as a
great academic professor who taught many generations and then as a skilled administrator in the
field of cultural work. He contributed to the development of the Egyptian plastic movement. He
has retained a rare superiority in all of these roles.
Nawar took his diverse experiences permeating into his artistic experience full of humanitarian
and national issues without turning the artistic experience into a rhetorical tone that limits the
glow of the aesthetic form or hinders its growth, transformations, and unique structure. He is a
sharp-eyed artist with a keen vision, as it should be for a former sniper, for whom the moment
differentiates between life and death. He realized how art is social without falling into the yoke of
propaganda and directness, and how the artist is responsible, not an isolated bohemian. His bi-
ography reveals that he lived concerned about this country, fighting for it, even if there were many
forms of fighting. Despite the intellectual framework that governs Nawar's experience, and the
purposeful contents that frame it, it does not triumph over or lead the language of form. Nawar is
a high-class fine art builder who was able to create his unmistakable visual forms and vocabulary
styled with his imprint through a tremendous ability to imagine and pass the vocabulary of the
world through his internal filters.
Nawar's creativity is unique in painting art, which makes it the core of his creative experience.
Holding a comprehensive exhibition of his experience in painting means that we can easily con-
template the launch of that experience and the lines of its rise, brilliance, and various transfor-
mations. We also contemplate its structural features that move from the artist's art of painting to
the multiple paths of his other arts, such as engraving, painting, installation, sculpture, video art,
monuments, and others. Perhaps the art of drawing is the closest art to Nawar's personality, with
its clarity, decisiveness, vision, and boldness. His great appreciation for this art and his realization
of its importance prompted him to launch a special award bearing his name in the art of drawing,
which receives its fourth session this year; it is an award directed to young artists in art faculties in
Egypt. In my opinion, this comprehensive presentation of Nawar's experience in painting is an im-
portant educational aspect for art scholars, historians, and critics to trace the research, scientific
and critical experience of a great Egyptian artist who gave the art of painting an important space
in his creative experience for more than half a century.
The Power of Drawing
The strength of the art of drawing is the clarity and simplicity that accommodates the artist's vi-
sion. It is the necessary base for all arts and the most direct means for studying the cognitive ba-
sis of the aesthetic experience, and the most direct link between the hand, the eye, and the mind,
and the practice of smooth transition between them. It is the supporting means and the initial step
for capturing and forming the idea, and it is the artist's support in his creative experience and the
171
