Footnotes

"I wanted to raise the spirit of victory by getting inspiration from the image of the folk hero who is never defeated," Charaf said in Direction, "and the waiting in our people for a hero to come and redeem them"
- Rafic Charaf

Provenance:
Property from a private collection, Beirut

Inspired by Western expressionism and working in a deeply Lebanese cultural milieu, Rafic Charaf was perhaps the one among his generation of painters whose art reflected the most his own life trajectory

Born in 1932 to a close-knit Baalbek family, the blacksmith's son became a regular personality among the Beirut intelligentsia from the 1960s to the 90s. The tale goes that as a boy he was nicknamed "the black plague" because his face was always sooty from his father's furnace. His pockets bulged with lumps of charcoal which he used to draw on anything that could pass for a canvas. It is said he spared no wall or door in the whole town.

It was by chance that celebrated Lebanese poet Loutfi Haidar stumbled across a drawing on the wall of the first bookshop in Baalbek, and asked who drew it. He was told it was the son of the blacksmith whose forge was next door. "My father found the blacksmith and told him that the then-16-year-old Charaf must go to Beirut to study," says Azza Haidar, who became a close friend of Charaf.

Through Loutfi Haidar's connections with the director of the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts, Charaf enrolled at the academy on a full scholarship in 1952. His talent was recognized internationally. In 1955 he was invited by the Spanish government to study for two years on scholarship at the San Fernando Royal Academy in Madrid. This was followed in 1960 by a sojourn at the Piettro Vanucci academy in Perugia courtesy of the Italian government.

Charaf went through a number of overlapping and evolving phases in his career. In the early 50s he was deeply inspired by the struggles of the poor in his native Baalbek. He used to draw many of these in charcoal, and his expressionism evolved out of the poverty he witnessed.

Beginning in the 60s he became influenced by folk poetry and art, orally recounted tales glorifying the hero ¬ this being the source of his interest in Antar and Abla, the mythical pre-Islamic hero and his romantic love.
He simultaneously he mixed Koranic calligraphy with his heroic paintings. In the mid-70s employing calligraphy combined with traditional Arab talismans, charms and symbols became his subject.

The |Antar" phase is one of Charaf's most important. Based on the paintings of Abu Subhi al-Tinawy, a popular artist whose folkloric drawings on glass can still be found in Damascene souks, Charaf was a pioneer in transforming traditional handicraft into high art.

Originating after the 1967 war, they were a response to the Arab world's feelings of defeat. Charaf wanted to show the heroism of past ages.
"I wanted to raise the spirit of victory by getting inspiration from the image of the folk hero who is never defeated," Charaf said in Direction, "and the waiting in our people for a hero to come and redeem them."

The present work reflects this "heroic" agenda; drawing on early Islamic history and stories such as the Martyrdom of Imam Hussein to bring to life the myth and heroic folklore of his native traditions.

Rafic Charaf was a truly iconic painter. His paintings, are an autobiography of his life and a homage to the grandeur of his culture.