Every great civilisation shares one undeniable truth: nations that preserve their art, their history, their galleries, their museums, their storytelling, and their aesthetic consciousness are the ones that ultimately shape the course of time. Art is not merely colour on canvas or stone chiselled into form; it is the silent language through which humanity communicates its centuries of fatigue, its dreams and wounds, its contradictions and aspirations, and its shared memory.
This is why, when we stand before a canvas, a sculpture, a miniature, or the luminous works of Monet, Goya, Manet, or Picasso, we do not simply see an artwork; we feel an ancient door within us slowly open. Art ties us to our past, expands our imagination of the future, and introduces a subtle order, a harmony, into the confusion of the present. It is art that makes us truly human.
Europe understood this long before others. The Tate, the National Gallery, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London; the Louvre in Paris; the Uffizi in Florence; these are not merely buildings. They are economies. They are universities of ideas. Around these galleries stand entire ecosystems: tourism, art markets, copyrights, printing, art storage, Freeport, art financing, and global auction houses such as Sotheby’s and Christie’s.
A single Freeport today holds artwork worth billions of dollars; silent vaults that have reshaped the entire culture of investment. Investors worldwide have realised that great art is not only about aesthetics; it is an asset. When Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman purchased Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi for $500 million, he did more than acquire a painting; he signalled to the world that art is a tool of national narrative-building.
Where does Pakistan stand in this global reality? Sadly, our museums reflect neglect, our galleries struggle with limited resources, our institutions collapse under mismanagement, and our national policy offers no space, no imagination, for aesthetics. In our schools, art, history, and geography are not treated as essential subjects, even though every enlightened nation teaches them compulsorily until the age of sixteen. Whether in Russia or France, Saudi Arabia or Qatar, the state has realised that if the next generation does not know its stories, its colours, its calligraphy, its sculpture, its music, its myths, and its artistic lineage, it will not possess the cultural confidence to build a future.
Art softens the human spirit, refines the tongue, widens the mind, and deepens empathy
Qatar built the Museum of Islamic Art; Saudi Arabia, through NEOM, has initiated an entirely new aesthetic conversation; Abu Dhabi revived the philosophical intensity of the Renaissance through the Louvre. Meanwhile, in Pakistan, culture has shrunk to stage dramas, designed for quick entertainment rather than civilisational awakening.
History is clear: when nations abandon their artistic inheritance, they slowly lose their collective identity. Our politics, our media, our television screens, our social media, each has adopted a language of noise without meaning, confrontation without creation, and anger without nuance. This is precisely where art becomes our guide. Art softens the human spirit, refines the tongue, widens the mind, and deepens empathy. Societies that lose their aesthetic expressions invariably invite intolerance, intellectual decline, and social fragmentation.
Pakistan must take three decisive steps without delay.
First, we must make art, history, and geography compulsory subjects up to the age of sixteen, so that our young citizens reconnect with their civilisational inheritance: our miniatures, our calligraphy, our music, our poetry, our architecture, our legends.
Second, our national galleries and museums must be upgraded, digitised, and funded to become centres of research, exhibitions, international collaboration, and cultural tourism.
Third, the private sector business, civil society, and entrepreneurship must be encouraged to enter art investment, art financing, art management, and Freeport models. These are billion-dollar industries globally; for Pakistan, they could unlock a new creative economy and offer real opportunities to our youth.
It is also a harsh reality that Pakistan lacks genuine avenues of public entertainment. Our cinemas have faded; theatre has lost its dignity; music festivals have vanished; theme parks hardly exist. When a single cricket match disrupts an entire city’s rhythm, it exposes the fragility of our cultural ecosystem. Healthy societies provide their people with spaces to think, imagine, and create. Without such spaces, extremism, anger, and frustration become inevitable companions.
Our parliament, politicians, civil service, judiciary, academic community, and cultural institutions must recognise the economic, civilisational, and ethical centrality of art. During Nawaz Sharif’s tenure, the revival of Mughal-style buildings and various national projects offered a brief glimpse of aesthetic consciousness. But the journey remained incomplete. Now Pakistan must reclaim its artistic and cultural soul. Art is not merely our past; it is the language of our future.
If we choose this path, Pakistan will rediscover its civilisational depth, shape a more peaceful and imaginative society, and lay the foundations of a creative, confident, and enlightened nation. Art does not simply teach us history; it restores our humanity.