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Saudi Gazette report
RIYADH — The Saudi Visual Arts Commission launched on Saturday an exhibition showcasing the rich artistic and cultural legacy of Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, emir of Makkah and advisor to Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. The exhibition, titled “Home of My Thoughts” is being held at Hittin Palace in Riyadh.
The exhibition sheds light on the outstanding contributions of a prominent national cultural figure who continues influencing the Saudi cultural field for many decades. The inaugural ceremony of the exhibition was held in the presence of several officials, prominent Saudi and international cultural and artistic figures, in addition to a group of those interested in the fields of literature, culture and arts.
At the opening ceremony, the commission presented cultural activities and harmonious visual and audio effects that added a distinctive dimension to the venue where it was held. Visitors also enjoyed special introductory tours through the exhibition’s corridors, viewed its valuable art collections, and listened to selected musical passages from poems recited by Prince Khaled Al-Faisal.
The exhibition takes a special artistic narrative that is summarized in two main tracks: the “inspired” man who derives his inspiration and creativity through employing the language, the word, and the Arabic letter in formulating poetry and literature, inspired by the spirit of the homeland and the originality of its people. The second path was represented by the “inspiring” man who contributed to inspiring generations of thinkers, artists, poets, and musical pioneers in the Arab world over many decades.
The program includes a wide range of activities and specific artistic and cultural programs with unique conversational, poetic and musical formats to enrich the visitor’s experience and motivate him to contemplate and think, as was Khaled Al-Faisal’s approach in some of his books. Among them is a dialogue session detailing the relationship of literature to art with the participation of a group of artists and poets related to its subject, in addition to a meeting that brings together a number of artists from the fine art village of Al-Muftaha in the southern city of Abha where they discuss how they were influenced by the personality of Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, who served earlier as emir of Asir, as well as his artistic and literary depth.
The personality of Prince Khaled Al-Faisal represents a cultural symbol due to the multiplicity of his creativity and aspects of his activities and benevolence as a poet, artist, and patron of literature. He spread his creativity in many fields, from poetry to literature, and from them to visual art. His poetic reading included up to 480 poems, and his intellectual production reached 18 books. Prince Khaled Al-Faisal has always been interested in thought and culture, and his collections documented this, and his brush explicitly expressed in the form of wonderful paintings whose colors blend with expressive shapes and made the painting a complement to the poetic verse.
The emir’s poetry blended with nature without going outside the norm in his poems. His fingertips excelled in depicting and describing the Kingdom’s charming nature, using words that reflected his passion for the Kingdom’s mountains and plains. At times, he would commune with the desert, with its sand, its vast horizon, its sun, its moon, its day, and its night, and at other times his heart would recite poems that commune with the clouds, the rain, the mountains, and the valleys.
The exhibition constitutes an influential and inspiring experience for the visitor, according to the Saudi Press Agency. With inspiration that transports him across time to those stations and memories that shaped the brush of Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, shaped his words, breathed life into his immortal paintings and works, and made his rich experience a valuable national addition.
The exhibition highlights the lofty feelings that inspired him, all of which were reflected in the personality of the prince, the poet, and the intellectual, who was connected to time and place, was proud of his heritage, and sang praises of his country and its citizens in his poetry and literary production, and his brush created them in beautiful paintings
