The Painter’s Son: Reminiscences on Baami’s dimensions of aesthetics

In memory of my father, LATE ALHAJI DAUDA AYINDE SOLANKE who retired in 1978 as a house painter at the Maintenance Department of the University of Ibadan, between 1957 and 1978.

I am a painter’s son. From childhood, Baami imbued in me the love for paint and brush. I saw him mix paints of different hues to get a different colour. I watched him sing as he climbed the ladders to paint storey buildings and high ceilings.

I joined him cut stencils to make signs and imprints. I risked standing beside him as he mixes lime, efun, with water, resulting in boiling mixture that bubbles, to whitewash walls, ceilings and fences.

He taught me about the scrapper, the sand paper, the thinner, the turpentine and the poly filler, all tools of his trade as a painting craftsman.
Painting is about beauty, about aesthetics, bringing out colour in a bare concrete. A home finishing is as fine as the ingenuity of its painter whose sense of colour guides the house owner.

He also imbued in me another form of aesthetics, the love for nature as he planted beautiful flowers in disused cans, placing them delicately on the windows of our congested parlour at our rented residence in down town Oke Foko, Ibadan. He lived most of his adult life in the Oyo State capital working as a painting craftsman at the Maintenance Department of the University of Ibadan, between 1957 and 1978 when he retired to be independent.

In 1973, he enrolled me at Abadina, UI where I schooled like the son of a scholar although he was q poor artisan. But people salute him as the Doctor as he also referred to himself as a philosopher. He died as a pensioner in 2000, while I was struggling as a writer in the dead Concord.

While he lived, I found in him love for the printed word, like a writer I am today. Though, he never attended a formal western school in his life, he schooled himself in the three R, reading, writing and ‘rithmetic so he could fit into his environment.

He read Imole Owuro, Gboungboun and Isokan, and he also bought me Atoka and Aworerin in my childhood years all these Yoruba vernacular publications of the latter part of the last century.

As I rummaged through his piles of old papers under his bed then, I found flowers, fruits and faces to cut to fancifully deface our parlour. He found no fault in my fervour. He also bought me crayons and water colours, and he was especially interested in my books, missing no item on my list as each new school session approaches. He shopped for for my Cortina shoes at Bata or its equivalent at Lennards. For my eid wears, it was at Kingsway in Ibadan.

Passing my common entrance at Pry Five In 1978, he took me to the boarding house at Asero, the parlance we call Egba High School Abeokuta where I was grounded in Arts and languages, undefeated in history from form three to five.
He saw me go to Baptist High School, Adeke, Iwo where I sat for papers in Advanced Level History, Economic and Literature. Just as he taught me the prayer, robbi zidnin ilma wa fahamana, {My Lord, increase me in knowledge and understanding) written on my jeleosinmin slate to memorize in my Primary One at Abadna, Baami prayed for my success at the University of Lagos.

While alive, he always assured me that my name would ring in all corners of the world for good. Throughout his days, he never stopped teaching me from the Quran and sharing insights on human aesthetics with me.
From him and maami, I took lessons on how the minds of men work and how their character is soiled and straightened, how not to impugn others and how to preserve honour, how to attract friends and keep them and how to make home and living, or strengthen the family bond.

They also taught me to love my roots Ikija at the root of Olumo Rock, Abeokuta, although Ibadan is where we lived and thrived, where my mother died but brought home to sleep finally. So in spite of their death we hardly miss Ileya, Hari Raya Qorban in Egba Oke Ona

In this colourful upbringing, I have come to understand deeper the meaning and dimensions of aesthetics beyond the paint and the brush, beyond mixing colours, beyond the ordinary written word, sometimes cold and lifeless print.

I have to appreciate the aesthetics of music beyond the mere sound or the cacophony of drum beats and the fluidity of the body gyrating to the symphony of flutes, strings, cymbals, tones and tunes.

Arts is not merely about revelry but should be spiritually elevating, invigorating, energizing, inspiring, fulfilling and consoling. When we consider the aesthetics of words and sounds, of pieces from the soul, we want to see colour and elegance, we want to see order in their organization and presentation. We want to see the mood of the speaker or the emotion of the writer. We want to see simplicity in its flow and cadence, in its content and context for its meaning to make impact. We want to see realism and surrealism, we want to gauge its reach, perspective and depth.

When we listen to music, we are not only interested in the sound or beat or the arrangement of its composition; we want to feel its elevating strength, we want see the mood of the composer and connect with his world and how he connects with ours.

The aesthetics of any art piece is in the personality of its producer. It comes from his soul, with his vision, his experiences, feelings and values. It comes with his spirituality. The true and faithful artist makes meaning from the madness of the moment and brings order into it with his talent.
He sees colours and beauty from the darkness of the world and with his skills brings out hope.

He also sees bullet, blood and tears from the revelry around him and cautions on their danger. When the artist, as a man aesthetics, loses vision, his work loses meaning and beauty.

Today, I see no meaning and beauty in many artworks I come across whether as painting, music, sculpture, drama, film, poetry or essay. I read books now and I see the depravity of the writer’s mind. I watch drama, movies and films and see deviance in their producers. I see paintings, sculpture and graphics and observed mania in the minds behind them.

I ask why? Has the modern artist lost human essence or empty? Is the modern artist a lost soul? Does he no longer possess intellect, character and spirituality? What is the motivation of the modern artist? In their themes now, I find only intoxicating wine, lurid picture, obscene flesh and obnoxious wealth.
I see bestiality. I see beauty bloodied by the worms of the flesh, cancer of the brain, infections of the mind and afflictions of the soul. Most of today’s artists are in need of a messiah, in need of a redeemer because when you come across them through their works, you see them as sons and daughters of Shaytaan, chained by shayaatins and jinns.

So, they need ruqyah, to exorcise them of the afflictions that are also infecting our world with noxious notions and values. The true worth of a man, as an artwork of al-Khaaliq or the Potter, Allah, lies in the purity of his soul, the nobility of his intellect and excellence of his character.

It is to be measured by the sincerity of his intention, the depth of his faith, the firmness of his conviction, the richness of his thoughts and the correctness of his choices, decisions and actions. Now, most modern artists and their artworks in prints, stones, woods, panels and cardboard, oil on canvas, pencils, photo, sounds and films, are empty of noble themes, forms and aesthetics.

They are living for fame yet dead in soul, brain and mind, because they have no mentor, a mentor like Baami the painter Doctor, my primary guardian and counsellor who taught me the Dimensions of Aesthetics.
Pity most of today’s artists.