Similarities And Differences Between Abedin'S And Lange'S Lives And Works

Can photographer and painter have the same perspective? They both create art. They may also express same theme of emotion. Zainul Abedin and Dorothea Lange are known for their paintings and photography respectively. Even though both these artists expressed the same point of view in their work, there are significant differences between them such as their themes, methods of expression and most importantly in their background and influence in their respective fields.

Firstly, there is a difference in the background of these artists. Zainul Abedin (December 29 1914 ? May 28 1976) worked inBangladesh. From childhood, he had a deep attraction towards art. In 1984, he founded the Faculty of Arts in Dhaka University. He also established a folk art museum in Sonargaon, Bangladesh. Besides being a painter he also actively took part in Bengali Language Movement (1948) and Bangladesh Liberation war (1971). He died from lung cancer and was buried in Dhaka. On the other hand, Dorothea Lange (May 05 1895- October 11 1965) mainly worked in New Jersey, USA.

Like Zainul Abedin, she had interest in her profession since a young age. She was the co-founder of Aperture Magazine and taught in California school of Fine Arts in her later years. After her death, many awards were named in her honor one of them being the Lange-Taylor prize for excellence in documentary studies. Unfortunately she passed away due to esophageal cancer in San Francisco, California.

Secondly, both of them were artists but used different methods to express art. Zainul Abedin, who was the pioneer of modern art in Bangladesh, also known as ?Shilpacharya?. He was versatile for using different forms of painting ?water colour, oil paint and ink sketches, bold strokes and geometrical shapeswere his main way to express thought. He was different from others as he did not follow traditional Bengali art culture. At the same time his works were heavily influenced by the lifestyle of people of Bangladesh and their folk form.

Zainul Abedin was a painter his whole life. As for Dorothea Lange, she was a mainly documentarian photographer by profession but also worked as a photo journalist. The time Dorothea Lange worked was the prime time of black and white photographs. According to Bouvet (2018) ?She was said to have used a Graflex, which is an early single lens reflex camera?. Her work borrowed techniques from the Lexion of modernism which means the photos were taking using dramatic angels and position. Their unique techniques gave rise to great masterpieces that everyone loved.

Both artists followed the negative themes in their works. Zainul Abedin focused on the struggles, suffering and protest of people in his paintings. He is most renowned for his famine sketches of 1943. The famine had made countless life miserable during that time in Bangladesh. This situation had a great impact on him and thus gave birth to the splendid sketches. He even made his own ink from charcoal for creating these art pieces. Another great painting by Zainul Abedin is a 65ft long Nabanno painting (1970), which was about the non-cooperation movement between Bangladesh and Pakistan.

As for Dorothea Lange most of her work was street photography. In her photographs you can feel the raw emotions and struggles of her subjects. Her main focus was to create awareness in the society by showing the suffering of people. The Migrant Mother (1936) is the most famous photograph taken by Dorothea Lange during the Great Depression in America. The photo shows a woman, Florence Owens Thompson with her children huddled together. By just seeing the photo one can observe the despair in the woman?s face. This was an example ofthe state of the people suffering due to the Great Depression. Members of the Mochida Family Awaiting Evacuation (1942) is another great photo by her, where it expresses in human treatment towards a family of Japanese immigrants during post-war.

It does not matter which part of the world they belonged to or what their profession was, how they expressed thoughts they lead the same view on our society. Zainul Abedin and Dorothea Lange have remarkable achievements and importance in their respective fields. They both had the same motive of creating a social awareness in society with their work of art. They showed how even with negativity one can create a positive outcome.