Wednesday, August 24 2005 11:26 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Chennai: Poetry, painting and dance came together here last night (August 23, 2005) at a function where well-known poet and lyricist Javed Akhtar regaled the audience with his poems marking the opening of 'the written word', a painting exhibition by 14 artists here.

Beginning with the tradition initiated by Picasso, a number of artists used spoken word in their visual works.

"Acclaimed painter K C S Paniker's 'Words and Symbols' series of paintings, inspired by horoscope charts and the script of Malayalam language, helped in freeing the written word from its usual function and gave it an identity of its own," the director of Apparao Galleries, Sharan, told newsmen.

It was in this tradition that her gallery joined hands with the 'Taj Coromandel' here to organise display of paintings by 14 artists. The paintings of seven artists are being displayed till August 30, 2005 at Taj Coromandel, while the works of other seven artists are being displayed at Apparao Galleries from September 3 to 12, 2005 she said.

On the occasion, Javed Akhtar rendered four Urdu poetry, which was translated in English by leading actress Shobana and one of the poems on 'Samay' (time) was rendered by the actress in a dance form, which was widely appreciated by the audience.

Akhtar said that basically paintings were poetry of words and poetry was paintings of words. Poets had always taken inspiration from everyday life, which the paintings also depicted.