From Humble Beginnings to Stardom
La6red9nec
IRAN NEWS ART DESK
Reclining on a trolley, lying on his stomach, Jahan Bakhsh propped his head,
rested his chin in the palm of his hand, and balanced his arm on his elbow and
welcomed Iran News
on Thursday at his workshop in Dezashib. Not far from Tajrish, some five
hundred yards to the right at the fork, pleasantly situated on the roadside in
a recess of the pavement,
Jahan Bakhsh Sadighi is busy. He started out in life as a menial laborer in a
bread shop.
All at once, he is teaching, painting and talking to the bystanders and guests
at his establishment. Born in 1955, he was paralyzed in the prime of youth at
seventeen. He was
decorating his neighborhood, on the birth anniversary of Imam Hussein (A.S.),
perched on scaffoldings, when a stray car rammed into him.
Jahan, as he is known to his entourage, spent long years in hospital. He
embarked on his new career, though barely able to move any of his body, feeling
no movement in his
torso, his fingertips included.
Large, soft brown eyes browsed at me. He scanned his atelier, clattered with
canvasses, and paint tubes, while several youngsters sat at their easels,
following instructions from
the master.
Jahan Bakhsh is charming to the extent of disarming the most reticent and
demanding onlooker. His voice still retains some of the warmth of the
Khouzestan strain. Humility of
the Maestro
The candor of this artist is bewildering. He attributes his success to the
receptive attitude of people to his art. Nothing blase in his manner that may
suggest the aloof virtuoso.
The blue bells in one of his compositions in a porch setting, are palpable.
This workshop is a God send to this little corner of Tajrish. His compositions
exuberate life. The three
dimensional force of his painting is so natural as to appear incidental.
Nothing is lost of the cadence of the flowers, the bouquets or the figurines
that seem to come and go in his
scenarios.
His response to the obvious queries on perspective and environment sometimes
lacking in Eastern art is straightforward. He makes it all so simple. The
illusory impression that
anyone could do it; the mark of the outstanding and dedicated artist. Nothing
could be more removed from reality.
Place de la Terte still has the footprints of Picasso. The bistros and the
cabarets attest to the frank confrontation of the genius with all that is life.
Picasso, the icon of our age,
the creator of Guernica and the happier strains of the man on his his jovial
carousals on the Riviera. We never see the failures, the many who fall on the
wayside, on the way to
Calvary.
Yet, the revelation in this little atelier is the attestation to a superbly
gifted man in our own backyard. For all the refrain of this sonata, Jahan
Bakhsh is constantly tending his
family. Still single, yet the warmth and affection in this live scenario
surpasses any imagined homely bliss. Fondest memories adorn the celestial
vaults as they beckon this herald
of our age. Few surroundings of opulence can match the imprints of these walls.
Jahan Bakhsh is the Emblem of Man, Creation and Our Maker Sadighi pronounces
the verdict on himself and his art. "I am the repository of men's receptive
fondness for my
art," he says. This is indeed a fond dedication to men everywhere in our world.
He calls it devotion to people and love of the masses. Yet, the very colors
around attest to a
supreme mastery that is rarely matched the world over. Could it be that this
jovial countenance belies the adept, sorely tried yet succumbing to his ordeal,
as only Jahan Bakhsh
Sadighi could have known?