Every time when we overstep the threshold of the studio belonging to painter, sculptor or architect, or any creator of Fine Arts whom we call Master we bate our breath. Here there reigns the spirit of man who is foreign to egoism and obduracy, who reject differentiation between the rich and the poor, the healthy and the sick, the clever and the foolish. Here there lives the man who works being inspired with ART the creation of which is his vocation. You enter the Master's sanctum! It is just here where he mediates over the philosophy of life, cogitates over his new designs, here he makes the first sweep with a brush on that yet clean canvas which is sure to become a masterpiece, but the distance between these two moments will be filled with sleepless nights and vultures of the mind. But at first we don't notice it being unaware of its greatness. Regretfully, being unable to evaluate this or that master during his lifetime a society begins to recognize the worth of picture or sculpture when a lot of time ensues, even centuries.
May contemporaries be on different levels of aesthetic education with the Master or find themselves in the temporal space polar to Him? I ruminated over it acquainting with the art gallery of Kamol Nodirov, painter and sculptor. Many people confess in non-comprehension of his works sometimes, as the latters are very different in genres, styles, trends. But it is from the point of view of non-professional. A person who understands art sees a versatile artist who perceives life in all evincements non-traditionally.
"In the environment of Leninabad painters he is one of the leading masters, - wrote art critic N. A. Tsallagova, well-known expert of the country. - He possesses more than a mere gift and the undergone art school. He formed as a creative personality due to his indulgence in art, industriousness and consonant labour. For the decade of his artistic activity he created considerable thematic frescos and historical pictures, a good deal of portraits, landscapes, still lives. He works in mostly variegated genres, monumental ad easel painting, makes a lot of drawings. Ancient painting and miniature, Picasso and Matisse, Soviet art and modern avant-garde - all this is in sight of the young painter, and being artistically recomprehended, is objectified into quite new images. Because the way of an artist is a process of cognition and unremitting perfection".
It was told when he was only 30 years old! To that time he finished already the Republican art school named after M. Osimi, Leninabad Teacher's Training Institute, Tashkent Institute of Dramatic Art and Scenery Setting; he was a chairman of Leninabad board under Tajikistan Union of Artists and a board member of the USSR Union of Artists, into the bargain the taught students in his pedagogical institute.
It is difficult to say what type of painter he is. The majority of readers know that there are marine and landscape painters, abstractionists and realists. But about 15 year ago he amazed his admirers with the skills of combining paining and monumental frescos having created the panels "Birth of Theatre", "Singer of Love" in Nov theatre and "Fairy- Tales World" for children's stomatologic polyclinic. As a journalist being far from art criticism, I was completely at a loss, I refused to write about the young painter when I had got acquainted with his picture "Battle for Khujand" - this composition was done in the style of Oriental miniature! It was one more trend … And today I see the pictures performed in the style of cubism and abstractions, busts and sculptures in his gallery.
Our conversation with Kamol Nodirov took place in his studio resembling somehow a cosmic ship from films. Similarity is enhanced by the peculiar interiors of the studio one side of which faces the Syr-Darya being completely made of glass. The summer pavilion located just here on the bank and made only out of natural stuffs -stones, reeds, rush and wood - is like a raft flowing down the river. The botanic garden smothered in greenery and the Mogol-Tau slopes welcoming the coming spring seem to be close at hand -you need only stretch it out and it will touch the live nature. All this can't help inducing to creation. "Here you feel the harmony of nature, -says the painter. - As all people of art I dream to find such a nook, a secluded refuge after those numerous removals …"
- Kamoliddin, and doesn't this bird on the island annoy you? -I asked him meaning the molten pigeon which stretched its wings opposite the studio, on Chumchuk-Aral (sparrow island).
- It does a little. But these are the extremities of the Soviet monumentalism. Moreover, this work was done by builders and not by artist. Amateurship can't create genuine art. A real artist can do even an abstract sculpture out of a heap of metal, but in such a way that it would "speak". The main thing is not to deny the new immediately but try to be insightful into the idea of a sculptor, his intention. We do perceive excellently Bach's melodies and those ones of our "Munojot". Words are not needed! And we do admire the canvases of Van Gocks, but when he was alive people didn't accept him, for them he was mentally sick.
The force of art is in its influence upon our souls. The masterpieces of painters, sculptors, potters are voiceless. And it is compensated by their ideas, thoughts, cries of soul, only through colours, stone or metal they are able to convey all the gamut of emotions overwhelming them. Kamol Nodirov's creation possesses all these properties. He inures this non-traditional world perception to his pupils. To say the truth, he doesn't refer to his pupils at a running out of those who come to his studio.
- That one is my pupil who considers me to be his teacher, - the master says quietly, without emotions. - We have no few good teachers, but one should teach not only in academism. Avant-garde painters should be in the world too, the new ought to be acknowledged. You would never tell who is better - Michelangelo or Rafaello, Repin or Aivazovsky.
- In the debates with my friends we came to the conclusion that abstractionism had been engendered in the Orient before it was defined as such in Europe. When Arabic conquerors implanting Islamic religion forbade to depict people and animals the masters of ancient Sughdiana contrived to convey their vision of the world in ornaments and miniatures.
- And this is indisputable. I adore folk art. I like jewllers and potters, carvers and emboideresses. I am convinced they should be stimulated in all possible ways, to be forwarded to the international arena. In the West they value it. The same Henri Matisse made a discovery based on the Oriental miniature. And our syuzanes, national garments, sculls caps - it is the same symbolics and signs which are traced back to the times of Avesta. That's why I consider that the creation of Sughdiana masters has deserved to be presented in the world space of Fine Arts; if supported by the state it will occupy a worthy place at any exhibition.
- By the way, how are Your works treated in the West?
- If at home the works of local painters puzzle spectators in the West people are ready to perceive any idea. Today in the West over 300 works in my reserve. The paints on canvases cry for light, sound, evaluation, but they lie in the rooms suffering from low and high temperatures. In Germany they acquired my composition "Prometheus" made in wood and several pictures. Not long ago I received and invitation from the directorate of Paris gallery "Artidume" to present my personal exhibition in the Museum of modern art. I must say, I am not the only one painter in the viloyat. We have no few other distinguished individuals.
Kamoliddin doesn't work alone. His pupil and friend Yusuf Yusupov works together with him for almost 20 years. They did a lot of joint things. Their sculptures are well-known - it is the eagle at the entrance to the town sweeping its wings as if welcoming people, the great Somoni sitting graciously on his steed, heroic Devashtich in Panjakent, romantic Kamoli Khujandi absorbed in his thoughts about the Universe. The best on the Alley of stars, Kamoli Khujandi's bust at the poet's grave in Tabriz, Iran - these creation also belonging to them.
And if you want to plunge for an hour into tranquility, beauty, the fine world - go down the stairs of "Jubilee" bridge to the Syr-Darya, enter the gallery of Kamol Nodirov - here you will be received as friends!