by An article titled “My Mother Zeynab Khatoon”, Pechpecheh Blog, Saturday, 5 May 2007
A detail from a work by Master Jalil Ziapour titled Zeynab Khatoon
The late Jalil Ziapour was among the pioneers of Iran’s modernist art movement and among the artists who made great efforts to introduce modern art and the Cubist style. He was born in 1920 in Bandar Anzali. In 1945, he graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Tehran, receiving first rank. After that, he went to France and was trained in the field of visual arts at the Paris School of Fine Arts “Beaux-Arts”, and in 1949, after receiving a doctorate degree in the field of visual arts, returned to Iran and immediately founded the “Fighting Cock (Khorus Jangi)” (Fighting Cock) art association, and he himself, like a fighting cock, went to war with the traditionalists to prove that Cubism is the gateway to modern art and the artistic language of the time. In addition to standing firm in this thought, he himself also tried to blend this art form with an Iranian resonance; hence, he turned to folkloric stories and local men and women, and recorded their depictions, such as Kurdish, Luri, Turkmen, Northern, Bandari, and nomadic women, on the tile-like grids of his paintings.
Just as one of his beautiful works originates from the folkloric poem “Jomjomak Barg-e Khazoon”:
Zeynab Khatoon
Jom Jomak, autumn leaf / My mother Zeynab Khatoon / Has hair as long as a bow / A bit longer than a bow / A bit blacker than jet / Wants a thirty-day bath / Wants a turquoise comb …
In this work, Master Ziapour has depicted “Zeynab Khatoon” in an exaggerated manner and entrusted her to the geometric divisions of the painting’s colored tilework.
In this painting, Zeynab Khatoon is sitting on both feet and, in reference to one of the lines of the poem “wants a turquoise comb,” holds a turquoise-colored comb in her henna-dyed hands and combs her hair, which is a bit longer than a bow and a bit blacker than jet.
The lively yellow color of the tiles, along with the burnt brown color of Zeynab Khatoon’s naked body and also the orange color of the henna on the soles of her feet and the palms of her hands, presents a lively atmosphere to the viewer.
And in general, the fusion of words with the color scheme of the canvas and the mosaic arrangement of the painting creates such a warm harmony that any stasis and stillness flees from the mind.
Master Jalil Ziapour passed on to the other world on the 21 December 1999, after living an artistic life.
May his soul be joyous and his memory eternal!
Source: Pechpecheh Blog
