Afghanistan, a dry and mountainous country with intermittent fertile valleys, its rugged terrain once populated by nomadic tribes, is often seen in the West as a desolate and landlocked site of conflict and oppression. Although now considered to be peripheral and marginalised, in the past it was central to the ancient Eastern world, positioned on the Silk Road trade routes and known for its rich natural resources. The Silk Road connected towns and cities with trading posts and caravanserai, linking China in the east to the frontiers of the western Roman empire; great distances were covered, and as travel was both dangerous and exhausting, its main business was the transport of goods that were both lightweight and valuable. Collected as they passed along highways, paths, and trails, they comprised such luxuries as silk from China, ivories from India, rubies, garnets, and gold from Afghanistan, and rugs and carpets from Persia.
With origins in three distinct cultures - Bactria in the north, Aria in the west, Arachosia in the south - Afghanistan was only united in the late nineteenth century. Soon afterwards it became a buffer zone during what was called ‘The Great Game’, a period of intense geopolitical rivalry between Britain and Russia. The British attempted to subjugate it and ultimately failed, the country becoming an independent kingdom in the early 20th century. Then, following some decades of relative stability, it was invaded by the Soviet Union in the 1970s in order to support a new communist government that was being challenged by the Mujahideen, and there has been conflict ever since. The Soviet incursion was far from successful, and the fundamentalist Taliban took control of the government by the late 1990s, remaining in power until they were temporarily overthrown during the US invasion of 2002. The Taliban regime was fully restored in 2021 and has continued to submit the Afghan people to oppression of all kinds, as well as to widespread cultural vandalism. Because of almost incessant war, the country has also suffered high levels of terrorism and poverty, and the political outlook, from an outsider’s perspective, remains depressing and intractable. Foreign disillusion, at least as experienced by Soviet soldiers, has been poignantly documented in the lengthy, slow-moving, and beautiful film ‘Spiritual Voices’, directed by Alexander Sokurov.
This is where Paul McKinley’s story begins. In his new body of work, he has reproduced scenes of the consequences of these Afghan conflicts, doing so with his usual attention to detail and painstaking handling of paint, which, on this occasion, seem to have been infused with particular concern and anxiety. Among them
are images of a vertiginous, tortuous, and mountainous steel bridge, symbolising the complex relationship between Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan, a ruined swimming-pool near Kabul, paid for by the Soviets, which may have been used for executions, and another of war wreckage; less politically charged are pictures of opium poppies, a woman wearing a burqa, and a peaceful mountain lake. Together, the paintings are sobering, perhaps more than a little disheartening. Unlike much of McKinley’s earlier work, however, which has depicted apparently congenial scenes that were actually sites of struggle, pain, or distress, these pictures are somewhat different, one or two of them subtly hinting at the harsh beauty and rich culture that underlie the devastation. They make reference, as well, to the work of John Burke, the Irish-born photographer who documented the second Anglo-Afghan war between 1878 and 1880, and whose images, dignified and respectful, reflect a certain wonder at the people and culture of the country.
About a decade ago, the British Museum in London held an exhibition of borrowed ancient Afghani artefacts; they included Bronze Age gold bowls, crafted objects from a Greek city in the north of the country, treasures from a merchant’s store room that had been sealed up two thousand years before, and a selection of golden jewels and ornaments that were buried in the graves of Bactrian nomads. McKinley’s paintings, in some mysterious way, reminded me of these wonderful things, and other associations soon arose too, such as the intense blue lapis lazuli that is found in Afghanistan, the snow leopard, which is the country’s emblem, the elegant Afghan hound, popular in West during the late 1960s, like the embroidered Afghan sheepskin jackets that were so often purchased on the hippie trail - and, in contrast, the gloomy modern war rugs that have been woven by Afghani refugees in Pakistan and elsewhere. Then I thought of the pomegranate, an almost universal symbol of abundance, fertility, and rejuvenation. Afghanistan is often regarded as the ‘cradle’ of the fruit, which it has produced in substantial quantities, but harvests have been dramatically reduced by the country’s ongoing troubles. As one recent commentator has sadly remarked, writing about the Taliban’s impact on the trading of the traditional crop, ‘crack a pomegranate in half and its blood-red seed-filled chambers make it look almost like a broken heart’.
John Hutchinson
