The painting "Taja Gulina", the work of the Kurdish artist Rebwar Saeed has some features that can be seen as a very different work compared to the rest of the paintings by Kurdish artists. In this article, we will briefly identify these features.
1. Cubism
In the beginning, when we look at the picture, we can see the style of Cubism in it. Cubism is one of the most famous and important artistic movements of the 20th century that was invented by Pablo Picasso, a painter and artist from Spain. In this artistic style, not only it is not important to illustrate the beauties of the people or phenomena in a realistic way but these elements must be broken into parts and painted in a distinctive style. This is done with geometric shapes like triangles, rectangles, and …. Many different colors must be used, too that resemble the rainbow colors and each one of them should be used in a section of the painting. The most significant goal of cubism is to convey feelings and meanings in a broken form and a large number of various colors so that it shows the audience the real beauty of something.
In this painting, there is a woman who has a very irregular body and does not look like a real human body. For example, each of her hands comes out of a non-aligned part of her body with one hand protecting her and her face is divided into two blue and green parts. It is also seen that this woman has put a part of her land on her head like a crown and the other part of her land with the animals in it is flying over her head and she is guarding with one of her eyes that is looking down. She has covered the other part of her face with her hand and she is looking at her crown. The woman in the painting is protecting her crown in this way.
Obviously, none of these features that we mentioned are not real which makes this painting a cubism work. However, the artist has tried to convey meaning through the non-aligned and abnormal body of this woman with her crown and her land below her more than trying to express a reality.
Another matter is that in this painting the large number of the colors is also very eminent as a cubism feature. In addition, the fact that more colors are used in the woman's dress compared to the background of the painting and her land and crown makes the woman more powerful than any other detail of this work. This is exactly what cubism tries to do. In the cubism style, the painter uses a larger number of colors on the part that they have chosen to emphasize more than other parts. It can also be mentioned that the artist has used all these colors to express his intention. For example, in the woman's dress and her face, many colors such as green, blue, and white have been used. These colors are often used to express phenomena like freedom or peace. However, in this work there is a paradox between the colors; we can see other colors such as black, red, and orange in the woman's dress in addition to the previous ones which can convey that power, revolution, and activism can also be seen along with peace and freedom. This form of using the colors can also be seen in the crown which is the woman's land. In this crown which is the symbol of this lady's country, colors such as black and orange have been used that not only express peace, but they also show activism and power. But, in order to preserve the theme of cubism style, in the woman's body, the range of color varieties is much more which is the most prominent characteristic of this work rather than its details.
2. Ecofeminism
Before I would discuss this word's connection with this painting, it is better to define the meaning of this word.
Ecofeminism is a style of thinking that was first introduced by the French writer "Francoise d'Eaubonne" in 1974 in his book titled "Feminism or Death". D'Eaubonne talks about ecofeminism as a thinking and belief system that includes women's freeing activities for nature. In ecofeminism's beliefs, there are several deductive features so that women become the leaders of these ecologic activities. This is necessary because it helps women to be free and liberate nature so that they would be respected by all.
1. Ecofeminism says that both women and nature can create life and life is impossible without them, but both of them have been misused during history, underestimated, and thus have been enslaved. They have also been enslaved by the authorities and this crime has been committed towards nature and the women. The source of this crime is the same.
2. Ecofeminism opposes a form of patriarchal belief system that creates a connection between women and nature. This patriarchal belief system that according to the ecofeminists comes from capitalism claims that some physiological characteristics of women like pregnancy and childbirth make women closer to nature. Now that women are the natural part of the world, men must be the intellectual and smart part of the world that makes them dominant women. Due to being intellectuals, men have to dominate nature and women so that they can reach the highest levels of success. They can also enslave women in order to create history as a smart person (not as a physical body like women and nature).
