Hurufiyya movement


The Hurufiyya movement is an aesthetic movement that emerged in the second half of the twentieth century amongst Middle Eastern and North African artists, who used their understanding of traditional Islamic calligraphy within the precepts of modern art. By combining tradition and modernity, these artists worked towards developing a culture specific visual language, which instilled a sense of national identity in their respective nation states, at a time when many of these states where shaking off colonial rule and asserting their independence. They adopted the same name as the Hurufi, an approach of Sufism which emerged in the late 14th–early 15th century. Art historian Sandra Dagher has described Hurufiyya as the most important movement to emerge in Arabic art in the 20th century.

Definition

The term, hurifiyya is derived from the Arabic term, harf which means letter. When the term is used to describe a contemporary art movement, it explicitly references a Medieval system of teaching involving political theology and lettrism. In this theology, letters were seen as primordial signifiers and manipulators of the cosmos. Thus, the term is charged with Sufi intellectual and esoteric meaning.
The hurufiyya art movement refers to the use of calligraphy as a graphic element within an artwork, typically an abstract work. The pan-Arab hurufiyya art movement is distinct from the Letterist International which had an Algerian section founded in Chlef in 1953 by Hadj Mohamed Dahou.
The term, hurufiyya has become somewhat controversial and has been rejected by a number of scholars, including Wijdan Ali, Nada Shabout and Karen Dabrowska. An alternative term, al-Madrassa al-Khattiya Fil-Fann has been proposed to describe the experimental use of calligraphy in modern Arabic art.

Brief history and philosophy

Traditional calligraphic art was bound by strict rules, which amongst other things, confined it to devotional works and prohibited the representation of humans in manuscripts. Practising calligraphers trained with a master for many years in order to learn both the technique and the rules governing calligraphy. Contemporary hurufiyya artists, however, broke free from these rules, allowing Arabic letters to be deconstructed, altered and included in abstract artworks.
The use of traditional Arabic elements, notably, calligraphy, in modern art arose independently in various Islamic states; few of these artists working in this area, had knowledge of each other, allowing for different manifestations of hurufiyya to develop in different regions. In Sudan, for instance, the movement was known as the Old Khartoum School, and assumed a distinctive character, in which both African motifs and calligraphy were combined, while media such as leather and wood replaced canvas to provide a distinct African style. In Morocco, the movement was accompanied by the replacement of traditional media for oils; artists favoured traditional dyes such as henna, and embraced weaving, jewellery and tattoo as well as including traditional Berber motifs. In Jordan, it was generally known as the al-hurufiyyah movement, while in Iran, it was called the Saqqa-Khaneh movement.
Some scholars have suggested that Madiha Omar, who was active in the US and Baghdad from the mid-1940s, was the pioneer of the movement, since she was the first to explore the use of Arabic script in a contemporary art context in the 1940s and exhibited hurufiyya-inspired works in Washington in 1949. However, other scholars have suggested that she was a precursor to Hurufiyya. Yet other scholars have suggested that the hurufiyya art movement probably began in North Africa, in the area around Sudan, with the work of Ibrahim el-Salahi, who initially explored Coptic manuscripts, a step that led him to experiment with Arabic calligraphy. It is clear that by the early 1950s, a number of artists in different countries were experimenting with works based on calligraphy, including the Iraqi painter and sculptor, Jamil Hamoudi who experimented with the graphic possibilities of using Arabic characters, as early as 1947; Iranian painters, Nasser Assar and Hossein Zenderoudi, who won a prize at the 1958 Paris Biennale.
Hurufiyya artists rejected Western art concepts, and instead grappled with a new artistic identity drawn from within their own culture and heritage. These artists successfully integrated Islamic visual traditions, especially calligraphy, into contemporary, indigenous compositions. The common theme amongst hurufiyya artists is that they all tapped into the beauty and mysticism of Arabic calligraphy, but used it in a modern, abstract sense. Although hurufiyya artists struggled to find their own individual dialogue with nationalism, they also worked towards a broader aesthetic that transcended national boundaries and represented an affiliation with an Arab identity in the post-colonial period.
The art historian, Christiane Treichl, explains how calligraphy is used in contemporary art:
The hurufiyya art movement was not confined to painters, but also included important ceramicists such as the Jordanian, Mahmoud Taha, who combined traditional aesthetics, including calligraphy, with skilled craftsmanship, and sculptors, such as the Qatari, Yousef Ahmad and the Iraqi sculptors, Jawad Saleem and Mohammed Ghani Hikmat. Nor, was the movement organised along formal lines across the Arab-speaking nations. In some Arab nations, hurufiyya artists formed formal groups or societies, such as Iraq's Al Bu'd al Wahad " which published a manifesto, while in other nations artists working independently in the same city had no knowledge of each other.
Art historian, Dagher, has described hurufiyya as the most important movement to emerge in the Arab world in the 20th-century. However, the Cambridge Companion to Modern Arab Culture, while acknowledging its importance in terms of encouraging Arab nationalism, describes hurufiyya as neither "a movement nor a school."

Evolution of hurufiyya

Art historians have identified three generations of hurufiyya artists:

Types of hurufiyya art

Hurufiyya art involved a very diverse range of "explorations into the abstract, graphic, and aesthetic properties of Arabic letters." Art historians, including Wijdan Ali and Shirbil Daghir, have attempted to develop a way of classifying different types of hurufiyya art. Ali identifies the following, which she describes as schools within the movement:
; Pure calligraphy
; Neoclassical
; Modern classical
;Calligraffiti
; Freeform calligraphy
; Abstract calligraphy
; Calligraphy Combinations

Examples

Notable exponents

Iraqi painter, Madiha Omar, is recognised as a pioneer of the hurufiyaa art movement, having exhibited a number of hurufist-inspired works in Georgetown in Washington as early as 1949. and publishing Arabic Calligraphy: An Inspiring Element in Abstract Art in 1950. Jamil Hamoudi was also a pioneer, active from the 1950s. Both Omar and Hamoudi joined the One Dimension Group when it was founded by Shakir Hassan Al Said in 1971 since its principles were based on the importance of the Arabic letter. The artist and art historian, Princess Wijdan Ali, who developed the traditions of Arabic calligraphy in a modern, abstract format and is considered a pioneer of the movement in Jordan, has been able to bring hurufiyya to the attention of a broader audience through her writing and her work as a curator and patron of the arts.
Notable exponents of hurufiyya art include:
Algeria
Egypt
Iraq
Iran
Jordan
Lebanon
Morocco
Pakistan
Palestine
Saudi Arabia
Sudan
Syria
Tunisia
Qatar
United Arab Emirates
Individual hurufiyya artists began to stage exhibitions from the 1960s. In addition to solo exhibitions, several group exhibitions showcasing the variations in hurufiyya art, both geographically and temporally, have also been mounted by prestigious art museums.