HYDERABAD, March 27: An overwhelming brainwave must have swept the listeners when world art scholars poured out their thought-provoking and mind-boggling ideas on the second day of an art moot.

The three-day international conference on ‘Art and Art Exhibition’ organised by the Institute of Art and Design, University of Sindh, continued on second day on Wednesday.

Eight scholars from Pakistan and abroad presented their papers on different topics.

Dr Radhe Sham Mulmi from Nepal while presenting his paper on “Art: A universal means of expression” said that the world we live in, gives us an amazing picture of innumerable diversities present in every walk of life. Yet there is a universal expression of mankind, that it is an expression of art through painting and sculpture.

“I believe that this universal language has remained the greatest link among civilizations throughout the history of mankind,” he said.

Sham said art transcends all boundaries and was a greatest connecting element of civilizations. He said painting and sculpture was the medium where native physical environment and culture were expressed without any help of words.

Presenting his paper on Archaeology of Potohar, a noted scholar from Islamabad, Dr M. Saleem said that presence of early man was documented by stone tool kits of some 2.2 million years from Pinjor silts along the Soan River in Rawalpindi.

He said that these tools represent one of the earliest pieces of art when man shaped them by with stone hammering and gave them oval, circular and pointed shapes. The Aryans came with their horses and red burnished pottery. Buddhist stupas were the sculptural art in Taxila, Khura, Bhera and Rokri and in Mianwali. The earliest Hindu temple was recorded at Ketas also in the Salt Range, he said.

In her paper on “Buddhist art between Taxila and Mianwali, Punjab”, Ms Amina Saleem of Fatima Jinnah University said Pakistan had a unique location to accommodate and disperse Buddhist art to Central Asia and Far East during Kushan period (200-500 AD).

She said that in Salt Range at Bhera-a-Bronze Bodhisattva wearing a turban is a unique piece. At Roda site terracotta human faces represent plastic art.

Ms Ragini Upadhyay Grela from Nepal in her paper on ‘Beginning of Modern Art in Nepal’ said in 1965 Nepal Association of Fine Arts (NAFA) was established.

She said NAFA besides organising art exhibitions, developed contacts and interactions with foreign artists and other art associations, and exchanged many art exhibitions in different countries.

She named a few leading women artists in Nepal, Jawala Shama, Bhadra Kumari and Silu Pyari were pioneers while in second phase Urmila Upadhayay Garg, Pramila Giri, Shashi Kala Tiwari and Ragini Upadhayay Grela, have produced many works. She informed that Jawala Shama was the first woman to enter contemporary Nepalese art.

Dr Misbah Rasheed from London in her paper, “Tile-mosaics of the Lahore Fort: Intercultural Influences on Art” said that arts are receptive and reflective.

She said influences of arts are reciprocal: they take and they give and added that art is a powerful tool to reflect concepts.

She said that in the 21st Century, art should be harnessed to technology and also to promote harmonious, peaceful and progressive society by promoting multiculturalism.

“Art has the power to transform life,” she said and added that the aim of an artist must be to promote human dignity, accept multiculturalism, peace for a tolerant and just society, understanding of human dignity and appreciation of multiculturalism. He should address issues such as poverty, economic development, education, scientific and technological development.