Articles & Critical Essays

Arabic letters are among the most pliable scripts for artistic expression, allowing the artist to engage in continuous dialogue with them through established rules and conventions, or through the aesthetic suggestions of line and colour. Arabic calligraphy carries qualities and vocabularies that make it one of the most widely spread scripts in the world.

The artist lives his creative life as a monk in the shrine of a single Arabic letter, having fallen into its trap without completing the experiment he had planned with other letters. It is the letter "Sin" — symbolising the unknown, the mysterious, and the interrogative — exploring its suggestions, its complex anatomical aesthetic form, and its hidden aspects far beyond mere shape, transforming it with dry pens, coloured pencils, inks, oil paints, gouache, and printed paper cuttings to set forth with the letter as a living creature.

Thirty years of creative journey lived by the letter "Sin" within the soul of artist Kamal El-Sarrag.

There is no doubt that the Arabic letter possesses an enormous spiritual energy in its capacity for shaping and moulding — it ascends, prays, supplicates, and cries out according to the expressive state. Kamal El-Sarrag is among our great artists who presented an artistic formula combining the richness of the Arabic letter with this abstract blend, constituting a new addition to Arabic lettering in expressive creation.

A salute to the artist El-Sarrag in his exhibition that made the letter Sin a profound visual hymn.

While Taha Hussein uses Arabic numerals in creating his compositions, we see artist Kamal El-Sarrag using the alphabetic letters with a different logic following free composition based on balance and kinetic and chromatic harmony between units in a scattered, unstructured decorative arrangement.

El-Sarrag in this exhibition deepens last year's experience in which he used the letter "Sin" with the same logic, but this time we notice how the possibilities of the letter expanded between his fingers, giving abundantly, generously, and with variety far from monotony.

At the age of 78, artist Kamal El-Sarrag passed away — a full professor in the Painting Department at the Faculty of Fine Arts and former president of Helwan University.

The late artist graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cairo, Painting Department, in 1960 and obtained his doctorate from the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, Italy in 1967. He was a founding member of the Artists' Syndicate and a member of the Art Club of Milan.

The letter "Sin" continued to shine with artistic lyricism throughout his creative journey. The Arabic letter possesses an enormous spiritual energy — it ascends, prays, supplicates, and cries out according to the expressive state. El-Sarrag was among our great artists who presented a formula combining the richness of the letter with abstract expression.

Peace upon artist Kamal El-Sarrag for the depth of what he offered as a profound visual hymn — and sincere condolences to his family.

Dr. Kamal Mohamed Ibrahim El-Sarrag was born in Kafr El-Zayat in 1934 and graduated from the Painting Department at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cairo in 1960.

During his studies, he lived in modest accommodation near the faculty behind Kit Kat Square. He began his studies in quiet and complete silence — his friendships were limited, he was patient, did not talk much, worked diligently, and strived to achieve something no one else knew about.

Kamal El-Sarrag travelled on a scholarship to Italy, accompanied by Zakaria El-Zeiny, Ahmed Nabil, and Shaaban Meshal. Everyone returned to the homeland filled with new cultures. He later married artist Suhair Hashmat, daughter of the late artist Hassan Hashmat.

His style changed and was enriched with modern ideas. He began to revolve around a single motif: the letter "Sin." As he himself said: "Since 1969, the artist's imagination has been captivated by the aesthetic form of the Arabic alphabet as part of Islamic art heritage."

He was devoted to his work. He never harmed anyone. He was always in his own world. Nations rise and ascend through their artistic heritage, and Egypt will continue standing tall thanks to its creative sons.

The great painter Kamal El-Sarrag belongs to the third generation of Egyptian artists, a distinguished group of painters who left a clear mark in the history of modern and contemporary Egyptian painting — including Zakaria El-Zeiny (1932–1994), Ahmed Nabil (1934–2022), Shaaban Meshal (1932–2014), and Salah Askar (1939). These artists are a group of thinkers with artistic visions that affirm originality, creativity, and thought rooted in universal, humanistic, and clearly defined artistic culture.

Our great painter Kamal El-Sarrag began his artistic works passing through the classical academic phase — a conscious, scrutinising study that grasped all elements of existence, delving deep into their sensory, formal, and chromatic secrets and philosophies.

In another new phase, particularly in the late 1960s — directly linked to the defeat of June 5, 1967 — the world collapsed for the Egyptian artist. Phases of rejection and fragmentation began, affecting artistic visions. Artists of this generation split into two directions: an angry direction declaring its grief and demanding reform, and another direction withdrawing from societal issues, imprisoning sorrows within to emerge in new abstract artistic forms.

Then our great artist El-Sarrag moved to another phase, more immersed in abstraction, searching for new forms. In the 1970s, he began a transformative phase using Arabic letters without their conventional verbal meaning — his focus narrowing to the letter "Sin," that distinctive letter full of movement and expression.

In truth, our great painter Kamal El-Sarrag infused his paintings with much of his refined personality, diverse cultures, and boundless humanity. He also practised coloured graphic art using linocut and zinc etching techniques, and in his final works presented a new experiment blending graphic art, painting, drawing, and collage — affirming the unity of visual art in achieving his artistic goal.

The irritation that struck you at first soon fades, and a smile of satisfaction returns to your lips as you whisper before the paintings: Sin... Sin again... Sin there... Sin inverted... Sin twisted... Sin intertwined... Then the enthusiasm of the aesthetic game you are invited to enter takes hold of you, and you begin tracking the particles of the beloved letter as it intertwines with other shapes or hides behind other geometries.

Gradually, you enter the world of a creature that Kamal El-Sarrag introduced into our artistic life. It is a creature like you and me — it has its moods, emotions, ideas, and problems. It is a beloved creature called Sin.

Kamal El-Sarrag continued exhibiting his works based on the letter "Sin." Over several years, El-Sarrag managed to establish in our consciousness a character we have been following with great familiarity — the character of "Sin." Sin, like any character that has played excellent roles in several literary works, seems ready to bid us farewell. It has exhausted what it had to say, and in El-Sarrag's latest paintings, it almost waves goodbye, retreating until it becomes a background or merging with other undefined abstract shapes.

Noteworthy phenomena in the second phase include the beginning of the trend towards obtaining academic degrees in art. Dr. Youssef Sidah and Dr. Taha Hosni were among the first to earn doctorates in art. Despite ongoing debates about the possibility of subjecting art to scientific research, the first generation surpassed this degree with their works.

It is noteworthy that the vast majority of Egypt's art pioneers practised teaching art, whether in art faculties or in general education. While artists who worked at faculties gained a degree of fame, a large group of those working in the education field also made clear artistic contributions.

Another striking phenomenon beginning from the second phase (post-Mokhtar) is the Egyptian woman artist's storming of the field of artistic creation and leaving clear marks in the domain of creativity.

At the French Cultural Centre in Mounira, artist Kamal El-Sarrag held an exhibition of his painting and engraving works without fanfare, displaying 61 colour pieces and four oil paintings. These works comprise his output between 1971 and 1975.

Kamal El-Sarrag, Assistant Professor in the Painting Department at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cairo, is a skilled engraver with the ability to play with his forms, especially the letter Sin, giving these forms bright, vivid colours.

He shaped the letter Sin in his works from 1971 to 1974 such that you cannot see a single painting that does not carry this letter, whether in the foreground or background. He undoubtedly possesses an artistic sense that prevents the viewer from tiring of seeing this letter in every painting — the letter varies, transforms, sometimes shrinks and sometimes grows, disappears to settle in a corner or takes centre stage.

In early 1975, El-Sarrag's works began to take on a new character — he appears to have started gradually relinquishing the letter Sin, with twisted and coiled forms taking its place, or at the very least, the letter began retreating to the background.

Kamal El-Sarrag is one of our artists who draw inspiration from the pliability and continuity inherent in the forms of Arabic letters, and the flexibility and vitality they contain, using the letter as an abstract form rich in artistic suggestions.

El-Sarrag creates compositions in which the letter — especially "Sin" — transforms into a new aesthetic form that does not adhere to the conventional anatomical structure. Rather, it appears sometimes in a repetitive rhythm alongside itself, or dialoguing with other forms, as if it were a personified figure moving in steady growth, suddenly reversing and spinning around itself, or flowing in a gliding manner between other shapes that wrap around it — creating rhythms that we cannot consider pure abstraction, yet at the same time do not constitute figurative work carrying literary meanings. Instead, it is a new formulation process whose raw material is one of the things closest to the human being.

This approach of modification and renewal is an affirmation that creativity is a new formulation of things and meanings, depending for its value and permanence on sincere inspirations that come only to a true artist.