A Smile and a Paintbrush

Ahmad Madoun’s smile and a paintbrush

— A eulogy by Fateh Moudarres (1922-1999)

I asked Ahmad when he returned from his short migration to Japan…

“What have you brought? What have you learned there?”

He smiled timidly and then looked at me and said, ”The smile”. 

“The smile?”

“Yes, I’ve learned to smile. They have taught me to smile”, he said.

I said to him, “A smile isn’t odd on your satisfied face”.

Then he said, “I’ve brought a set of paintbrushes. Japanese paintbrushes”. 

“Do you like to live there?”

This was more than fifteen years ago.

We used to meet often in my studio in Ahmed Muraywed Street. In the basement. We used to speak mostly about one subject: How can we understand the light? What is the meaning of the lines that make up the subject of drawings?

He insisted that plastic art in Syria is a national commitment of a plastic artist himself, and that the Arabs are inherently the most understanding of human nature. I asked him how he came to this understanding. 

“From Palmyra, the Arabic Palmyra. If we could understand Palmyra, I would be happy”, he answered.

“Is there a really happy artist?”, I asked

Ahmad devoted all his presence and strength to his work as an artist who committed himself to the art of his people. Within a few years, he produced artworks with a pure self-perception of the “spirit of Palmyra”. And our art-culture in Syria earned a true artist who was committed to the cultural perspective of his homeland in the field of art innovation. 

Was Ahmed really happy? Had he overcome the obstacle of alienation that the artist lives through in this world?

When I heard the news of his death in an accident, I cried. I cried fearfully for my homeland.