Yesterday, Bryan and I received a painting made by a Syrian sculptor/painter who currently lives in Romania. We met Ammar Alnahhas in 2015 in the Danube Delta, where he was at a retreat with a group of painters, capturing on canvas the spring colors of that magical environment. Ammar studied Fine Arts in Damascus and was a well-known sculptor before his arrival to Romania where, due to limitations imposed by living in an apartment, started painting. So it comes as no surprise that Ammar sketches and paints like a sculptor! A collector aptly named him “a Syrian sculptor, but a Romanian painter." Several patterns from his country of origin, such as the dervishes, the musicians, the fish, the bird, the goat, and the donkey, appear frequently in his work. Women as mothers, wives, and sisters are also featured. Later on, his work adopted elements of Romanian folk art, so the rooster and horses start making appearances in his paintings, as do traditional Romanian colors.
I liked the freshness of the colors I saw in Ammar’s paintings while we were in the Delta but I did not fall in love with his work until I saw his faceless whirling dervishes! I kept seeing photographs of his dervishes in the many exhibits he had during the last year and finally today, one of them is whirling in our living room!
Sufism is the mystical branch of Islam and emphasizes universal love, peace, acceptance of various spiritual paths and a mystical union with the divine. If you are not familiar with Sufi whirling, it is a divine offering, a form of active meditation, which originated in the 13th century with Rumi and his followers. Through it, dervishes aim to reach Kemal, which is the source of all perfection. The whirling is considered a symbolic imitation of the movement of celestial bodies and like any meditation, it strives to renounce the ego, attachments, and desires such that one can experience communion with the beloved. While whirling, the dervishes hold their right palm upward toward heaven and their left palm downward toward earth symbolizing that what comes from God must be shared with the people. The worshipers rid of their black outer robes (symbolizing the grave) and clad in the traditional white robes, gradually start whirling in a counterclockwise direction; they may turn 2000 times during a dance. All the while, they wear tall camel-hair hats, which symbolize the tombstone.
I look at Ammar’s painting and the music of Andrea Bauer, Cello Songs for Silence, starts enveloping me. It will be a constant reminder that the ultimate goal is to live in harmony, filled with love.
Onward,
Cristina
I liked the freshness of the colors I saw in Ammar’s paintings while we were in the Delta but I did not fall in love with his work until I saw his faceless whirling dervishes! I kept seeing photographs of his dervishes in the many exhibits he had during the last year and finally today, one of them is whirling in our living room!
Sufism is the mystical branch of Islam and emphasizes universal love, peace, acceptance of various spiritual paths and a mystical union with the divine. If you are not familiar with Sufi whirling, it is a divine offering, a form of active meditation, which originated in the 13th century with Rumi and his followers. Through it, dervishes aim to reach Kemal, which is the source of all perfection. The whirling is considered a symbolic imitation of the movement of celestial bodies and like any meditation, it strives to renounce the ego, attachments, and desires such that one can experience communion with the beloved. While whirling, the dervishes hold their right palm upward toward heaven and their left palm downward toward earth symbolizing that what comes from God must be shared with the people. The worshipers rid of their black outer robes (symbolizing the grave) and clad in the traditional white robes, gradually start whirling in a counterclockwise direction; they may turn 2000 times during a dance. All the while, they wear tall camel-hair hats, which symbolize the tombstone.
I look at Ammar’s painting and the music of Andrea Bauer, Cello Songs for Silence, starts enveloping me. It will be a constant reminder that the ultimate goal is to live in harmony, filled with love.
Onward,
Cristina