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Truck Art In PakistanThe colorful, sometimes dazzling, art work on trucks, buses, tankers, and vehicles, which is found in a abundance in pakistan and hardly anywhere else in the world have fascinated and visitors from all over the world.
This extraordinary truck art tradition has it's roots in the days of the Raj when craftsmen made glorious horse drawn carriages for the gentry. In the 1920's the kohistan bus company asked the local Michaelangelo, Ustad Elahi Buksh, a master craftsmen to decorate their buses to attract passengers. Buksh employed a community of artists from the Punjab town of Chiniot, Who's ancestors had worked on many great places and temples dating back to the Mughal Empire.
Colors commonly used are extremely bright flaming orange, gleaming red and yellow, shocking pink, an intense emerald-green, the mystical and national blue, combined all shades of spectrum.
Designs created consists of geometrical and floral patterns, landscapes with lakes, rivers, waterfalls, snow-covered mountain peaks, springs, fountains, garden flowers, mosques, eagles, peacocks and fowls etc.
Most vehicles are decorated from top to bottom with no space left blank down to the hubcaps and fuel-containers. The main themes of the paintings are dictated by the choice of the owners reflecting their cultural heritage and tastes.
Most Surprising, the artist and the artisan involved in this special art are not graduated from art schools or colleges, yet they perform
This extraordinary truck art tradition has it's roots in the days of the Raj when craftsmen made glorious horse drawn carriages for the gentry. In the 1920's the kohistan bus company asked the local Michaelangelo, Ustad Elahi Buksh, a master craftsmen to decorate their buses to attract passengers. Buksh employed a community of artists from the Punjab town of Chiniot, Who's ancestors had worked on many great places and temples dating back to the Mughal Empire.
Colors commonly used are extremely bright flaming orange, gleaming red and yellow, shocking pink, an intense emerald-green, the mystical and national blue, combined all shades of spectrum.
Designs created consists of geometrical and floral patterns, landscapes with lakes, rivers, waterfalls, snow-covered mountain peaks, springs, fountains, garden flowers, mosques, eagles, peacocks and fowls etc.
Most vehicles are decorated from top to bottom with no space left blank down to the hubcaps and fuel-containers. The main themes of the paintings are dictated by the choice of the owners reflecting their cultural heritage and tastes.
Most Surprising, the artist and the artisan involved in this special art are not graduated from art schools or colleges, yet they perform
their incredible work skillfully, using their imagination to create and fantastic and dreams, the colours and embellishments of which are deeply rooted in Pakistan's rich folklore.
Modern influences also manifests itself by depicating trains winding up mountain-passes, ocean-liners plough through calm seas, aircraft gliding through the cloudless sky, even fighter jets and rocket and, unusual though, celebrated film beauties.
From the front and the back-fenders of the trucks and buses hang rows of metal chains with small bells, hearts and other shapes. This give off delightful jingling sounds whenever the vehicle hits ruts ditches in the roads, or brakes suddenly.
Modern influences also manifests itself by depicating trains winding up mountain-passes, ocean-liners plough through calm seas, aircraft gliding through the cloudless sky, even fighter jets and rocket and, unusual though, celebrated film beauties.
From the front and the back-fenders of the trucks and buses hang rows of metal chains with small bells, hearts and other shapes. This give off delightful jingling sounds whenever the vehicle hits ruts ditches in the roads, or brakes suddenly.
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