BEAUTY IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER...

Three years ago, a wonderful artist departed this earth. However, interest in the master's works has not only not diminished over the years, on the contrary, more and more people talk about them. What is the secret of such creative popularity lasting beyond her lifetime? What makes us refer to her works again and again, each time discovering something new in them? Is it the unique vision of the artist, a special artistic intonation or her unusual means of expression? Is it the deeply philosophical work of a master? It seems that all these act together, with two further two constants, two essential aspects of this world that the artist revered piously all her life - Beauty and Love are present in all her paintings. Seen by the eyes of a master through the prism of Love and Beauty, the world opens to us in all its brightness, surprise and luxury. A great romantic of non-romantic times...

An outstanding representative of an original style of art - oriental mystic romanticism, Sarah Manafova left a huge legacy in her paintings and graphics of different styles, techniques and genres and in the qualities that were crucial to all her activity - high professionalism, clarity of artistic thought and freedom of creative expression. As a people's artist, she created a depth of national art from the very "roots" in an organic synthesis of reality and symbolism, expressed in a distinctive Azerbaijani life, morals and character. In a beautiful, romantic dream dressed in the colours of oriental poetics - an art near and clear to every viewer, regardless of nationality.

Her graphic technique is marked by the novelty of her methods - in free and bold composition, in vigorous pictures and in the expression of pastel shades and saturated colours. In her final years, the artist worked in a kind of synthetic manner - at the intersection of painting and graphics, in the manner of Sara Manafova, creating graphics by hand and with the vision of an easel painter. Pastel in her paintings is laid down in strokes of oil. Colour in her works takes on an actively emotional expressiveness and carries the meaningful strain of a role - in a palette of rhythmically alternating bright and resonant tones with the almost incorporeal lightness of pastel. With contrasts of light and shadow which ignite the system of colours.

All that was created by the painter is soaked in the East - multicoloured and many-sided, stirring one's imagination and mesmerizing one with the mystery of images. Restrained in warm "pastel shades" and open to bright, simple colours. Among her works - in the style of oriental miniatures - there are seven colourful genre works on gesso board illustrating Nizami's immortal poem - "The Seven Beauties". Landscapes inspired by Eastern tales in which ancient Baku, in a series of works called "The Line of Destiny", is colourful, bright, slightly unreal and very attractive. Intricate images with all the unpredictability of life's diversity and the beauty of the human spirit, are expressed in numerous genre works by the artist. As in her famous "Bath", in which Azerbaijani Venuses are shrouded in clouds of steam and covered with the traditional bright "fiteh" (wrap). The colouring of the picture and the mood created by a certain touch of the grotesque in the shading, make these apparitions almost real and tangible.

A master of the psychological portrait, Sara Manafova created her own special genre of portrait in a mixture of real-world features of the individual model and the fantastical allegory of her characters - the dynamic rhythms of mysticism and dramatic heat of human passion. Among them are well-known and internationally recognized works - "A Girl Playing the Flute", "A Girl with a Bird", "Portrait of Sevda" and "Portrait of a Daughter". And the last, bright, portrait series of the artist - of seven female images painted from live models and inspired by the same poetic revelation of Nizami - is "The Seven Beauties". All these take the portrait genre in the works of Sara Manafova beyond the boundaries of the generally accepted.

The triptych "Leyla and Majnun", impregnated with high spirituality, is a kind of sublimation and tour de force of the activity of the artist-philosopher. Painted in an unusual reading of Fizuli's great poetic works in which the titles of the triptych are clearly inspired by the Gospel story - "Love", "The Crucifixion of Love" and "The Entombment", it gives special urgency and an air of modern tragedy to the perception of the medieval poetic story. And the hero of the plot - Majnun, as if mystically identified with the Messiah-Jesus, leads the viewer to contemplate the common mission of both, expressed by self-sacrifice in the name of a great, comprehensive and all-consuming love.

Unconfined by generally accepted standards, the artist's paintings are filled with naturalness and ease, grace and playfulness, coquettishness, life-affirming sincerity, spiritual creativity and a freshness of perception of the world. In metaphorical subtlety and an all-embracing passion for hyperbole, the grotesque, bizarre and irrational, objects in the countless still-lifes of the master - "Black Rose", "Two in the Night" and "Three" - live their own lives, display their emotions and certainly do not represent "dead nature". And her "Wilted Roses" look sad!

A series of works from the artist's final creative period "The Shocking Tattoo", which baffled many art critics, is full of riddles. Strange naked creatures with puppet faces devoid of human expression. Sometimes two-faced, sometimes bisexual, tattooed and decorated with body piercing and amulets...? Regarding this series, the author once said: "An artist sometimes paints what he sees. I drew it without putting a particular meaning into it. I once saw a crowd of people adorned in this way on the streets of Munich. It made a strong impression on me then. As a human being, I became interested in the human psychology of these people. But as an artist... - Colourful! Unusual! And terrible..." Bisexuality, double-faced with symbols... and a strange feeling of anxiety at the sight of these works. No, it is not only the characters of the decorated crowd in these works. Was it a spontaneous attempt to talk about man at a time of change? Perhaps not spontaneous? About the changes that have taken place in the hearts of people who look more and more like dolls? An understanding and foreboding about the fate of the world, the artist and the prophet...? Truly shocking!

The creative fate of the artist, which forced everyone to speak of her as a great and original master literally from her very first steps into the arts, was more than favourable to her. And her first works, which received international recognition, made her a celebrity on an international scale, opening the way to participation in numerous international exhibitions and to glory. And this success and, most importantly, the ease with which she achieved success, gave birth to a crowd of ill-wishers. It is difficult to believe now, but there was a period when she had to remember - that she was successful, a chosen one, a period of non-recognition and underestimation. Talent is always surrounded by envy. Perhaps because talent is the only thing that can neither be bought nor won, and not even earned by hard work. It is a gift from God which is always a test...

Today, in the absence of the master, by the laws of existence, you begin to realize that there was no loss in an absolute sense. For the artist continues to live in the energetic particles of her soul, left in the paintings - goodness, light and love for this world. Particles of a personality endowed with God's special psychic constitution and a special mission - to see and create Beauty.

The life of Sara Manafova's art did not end; it continues and will continue - "big things are best seen from a distance". As long as the human soul seeks beauty and the light of hoping for the best has not gone out... If you immerse yourself in her paintings, you do not want to leave them. And while looking at them you feel that time stands still and that you are beautiful, young and immortal...!