The Normative Concept of Body and Drape in Pakistani Art: An Ethnographic Study of Narrativity

Abstract

My research topic is, “The Normative Concept of Body and Drape in Pakistani Art: An Ethnographic Study of Narrativity”. I choose this topic as art has always been an area of my interest. My thesis examines the paintings of artists and the normative concept of body and drape in art in Pakistan. My focus was on the narrativity of the paintings, the ideology or concept of artists while or before making paintings and what message do the viewers perceive from these paintings. I have conducted an ethnographic, qualitative research employing qualitative research methods. Ranging from rapport building to different techniques of sampling. The arguments put forward in this thesis are the product of extensive participant observation, in-depth interviews and literature reviews on the relevant concepts of art, body, drape and narrativity. The theoretical framework of this thesis is based on theoretical conceptualization of narrativity by Bence Nanay. The research had following objectives:  To understand the depiction of Body with drape in Art in Pakistan and its narrativity  To understand the depiction of Drape in Art in Pakistan and its narrativity  To understand the depiction of Body without drape in Art in Pakistan and its narrativity This research is conducted in two cities Karachi and Lahore. As the nature of research demands to focus on specific elements of art and extensive interactions with artists and viewers, it was hard to find the artists at one geographical locale in its orthodox sense. I have experienced certain limitation during my research as I could not approach and interview the buyers of paintings, because their contact details were not provided by the gallery owners. Also, I could not interview those male artists who paint female bodies to know their understanding or ideas while painting the female figure. This can be further explored. I have selected 22 paintings of 6 different artists, have 22 different stories or ideologies of artists, which is their narration of respective paintings. Whereas there are 12 viewers in total and I have interviewed 5 viewers for each painting, so that makes 110 different stories, which I have analysed. So, it would not be wrong to say that I have 6 different narrations for each painting,