Arabia Ya Biyoot El Quds
By Mohammad Jaloos
Published by The National Publishing House 2003
Pp.96
JD 10
It is believed that no other city in the world has been documented, studied or read like Jerusalem.
Many works of art have been done about Jerusalem, and many artists have tried to grasp the inner beauty of the Holy City.
‘Arabia Ya Biyoot El Quds’ comprises 28 watercolours and photographs of various historical and religious places in Jerusalem by local artist Mohammad Jaloos during his visit to the holy City in 2000.
“It was not easy for me to capture all this beauty in my paintings and to perform my own ritual of colour and line,” writes Jaloos in the introduction.
He adds that entering Jerusalem for the first time was an unusual occasion. “Seeing its beautifully unique Arabic architecture while smelling history and recalling the voices of my ancestors who, through their holy blood and sweat, made this miracle possible, brought to me sensations I never experienced before,” writes the artist who was born in 1960 in Wihdat, a refugee camp for Palestinians.
The official spokesman for the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem and the Holy Land, Archimandrite Attala Hanna, writes in the introduction that there is always room for more artists and writers because the city keeps inspiring artists to give their best.
“ Jerusalem is the city of our faith and spiritual peace that will lift us to the holy skies. It is the city that embraces the holy sites, as well as civilisation, history, heritage and identity. Jerusalem is to us like the heart to the body; much as the human body cannot survive without the heart, it is impossible to talk about Palestine without its ‘heart’, Jerusalem.
Jaloos finished the primary and secondary stage in UN refugee schools in Amman and started painting when he was seven years old. The artist obtained a university degree in business administration from Jordan University and a painting degree in art from Jordan Institute of Fine Arts in 1979.
Jaloos published a collection of short stories ‘Memory of a Side Street’, in 1984 and has many studies in the field of art, criticism, journalism, graphic design and animation.
To purchase the book, the artist’s website is: www.aljaloos.com
Hada Sarhan
Book Review