◎ Brother.J
Exhibition: The Charm of Persia – An Exhibition of Iranian Miniature Paintings
Duration: Until 15 March 2022
Venue: Shanghai Museum of Art
During the New Year's Eve, an exhibition at the Shanghai Museum of Art quietly caught fire, and the "Persian Charm - Iranian Miniature Painting Art Exhibition" presented a niche art that was both mysterious and curious to Chinese , miniature paintings , beautiful colors, fine brushstrokes, rich story backgrounds... Miniature painting is a kind of painting that has a story the more you look at it.
Miniature paintings are paintings drawn with particularly thin brushes, known for their fine brushwork, dating back to the mid-3rd century AD. Miniature paintings first appeared in the form of illustrations in classic manuscripts, and were later used as decorative motifs on title page badges, boxes, frames and other objects, as well as gemstones and ivory jewelry.
Miniature painting was carried forward and inherited in Persia, and flowed into India and Turkey, becoming a very distinctive form of painting. "The Charm of Persia - Iranian Miniature Painting Art Exhibition" presents miniature painting and the world behind it through four chapters, "Glimpses of the Dynasty", "Legend of the King's Book", "Poetic Feelings" and "Collecting Customs and Customs".
The existence of miniature painting is closely related to the book, tracing its etymology, the word "miniature" derives from the French word derived from the Latin word "dyed red", from the first letters of the chapters decorated with dyed red in medieval European manuscript books. The earliest miniature paintings were also used to accompany the text of the book, depicting imaginary scenes and pictures.
When we walked into the exhibition hall, the first miniature painting we saw was The King and His Loved One, in which a young Persian man enters the palace, his eyes drawn to the tapestries on the walls. The content of the tapestry in the painting was enlarged by the exhibition party to make a mural, and when you enter the exhibition hall, you are the first to see this huge mural. This miniature painting is full of details of Islamic motifs, intricate Persian carpets, exquisite phoenix motifs, and mosaic architectural decorations, the protagonist is placed in such a beautiful environment, the person in the mural is also a richly dressed man, surrounded by different women...
This miniature painting is the work of a contemporary painter, but the story behind it is an ancient legend, written by Persian poets about the legendary love story of the Sassanid king Khoslow II and the Armenian princess Shirin. This story is one of the favorite subjects of Persian miniature painting, and looking at this painting, we imagine that the man in the painting is heralded by the mural, who will experience inevitable love, impulse and betrayal...
The two chapters "Imperial Snapshots" and "The Legend of the King's Book" reveal the special status of this art form in ancient Iran, that is, its aristocratic artistic side. Persian miniature painting arose during the Ilkhanid dynasty (around the 13th century) when the Mongols ruled Iran, and the 13th and 17th centuries were the popular period of miniature painting in Iran, which was largely derived from the commission of the royal palace and the nobility, similar to the Chinese Southern Song Dynasty painting academy, Iran also had several major painting academies and court painters, and ancient miniature painting was also an art appreciated and played by the royal nobility.
Probably the most numerous of all the royal paintings are miniature paintings of the Chronicles of kings, an epic poem of the Persian nation written by the poet Ferdosi in Persian, which records the story of Persia from the ancient past to before the Arab invasion, and contains many folklore. An important cultural project after successive monarchs took office was to produce an illustrated version of the Chronicles of kings.
It is a series of well-known Persian literary works such as "The Chronicle of Kings" that pushes Persian miniature painting to the climax of creation, and the change in the style of miniature painting can be seen compared with the miniature painting of the "Chronicle of Kings" of different eras.
For example, the work "Myth", the original work is in the Malik National Museum in Iran, and the influence from Chinese landscape painting can be clearly seen in this work. There are three figures arranged in a diagonal line behind the mountain stone, looking at the dragon in the foreground, whether it is a mountain stone or a cloud in the sky, all taken from the Chinese painting program, the clouds can see the pattern of the auspicious clouds, even the face of the character, in addition to the headdress and sideburns, is also similar to the face of the character in the Chinese gongbi painting, the facial features of the face are basically the same.
If this work reminds us of Chinese painting, the 16th-century Battle of Rustam and Suhrab sees the same differences. Two horses on warhorses, two men fighting, these two people are the Persian legend of the warrior Rustam and his son Suhrab, father and son kill each other, this tragic story is one of the four tragedies of the Book of Kings.
Although the painting method of the mountain can still see the grain of landscape painting, the fine painting is simply to let the imagination run wild in color, which is completely opposite to Chinese landscape painting, and the color reveals the non-realistic nature of the miniature painting and the cultural tradition of the Persian nation to love bright colors. The two figures, one red and one black, and the war horse is also a bluish blue, and one pink with spots, you can imagine how refreshing it is to see such an illustration when opening the book.
Some studies have shown that Islam prohibits idolatry, and the pattern is rarely human and animal, but under the influence of Sufi mysticism, the miniature painter uses the eye of the mind to depict the true face of things, showing the "world in the eyes of the Allah", so the figures and animal images can be retained. The miniature painting stands in the perspective of God and looks at the world, so there is no perspective, no depth of field, and no personality portrait, which is a three-dimensional world that extends infinitely on the plane, in this world, the color does not change because of the light, and any color may appear. The classic works of Iranian miniature painting in history basically meet the above characteristics.
In the hands of the contemporary painter Mohammed Lahojanian, the stylization of miniature painting has been broken, absorbing the painting techniques of the European Renaissance, and the layout no longer adopts a central layout. "Samzar and the Sacred Bird" is a good example, telling the story of the ancient Persian hero Sam who went back to the mountains to retrieve his white-haired son Zar, who was born, and the sacred bird in the mountain sent Zar to Sam. This picture is depicted many times in miniature paintings, and most of them show sam in the mountains, and the god bird holding Zar. In this contemporary work, the background is completely abstracted by the artist, using Islamic patterns, the whole picture fully highlights the two protagonists Sam and Zar, the tone changes from colorful and brilliant to a unified dark tone, and the portrayal of the characters is very real and accurate.
In the change of the times, miniature painting has slowly changed, not only in terms of composition and perspective, but also in terms of the content of painting, the daily life and folk customs, and even the portraits of people have entered the painting. In the chapters "Collecting Customs and Customs" and "Poetic Painting", miniature painting is a mirror depicting Iranian folk culture, and at the same time, as a decorative art, miniature painting is also used to decorate calligraphy works, forming a plastic art style completely different from Chinese freehand calligraphy.
For example, in the Safavid period (1501-1736), the miniature painting "Lovers", in the middle of the picture is a pair of lovers, the woman is leaving "burn marks" on the man's arm, which is a way of expressing loyalty between lovers at that time. The painter Afzar Al-Husseini studied under the master of miniature painting Reza Abbas, and several of Abbas's works can be seen in the exhibition, most of which are mainly depicting young people, such as "The Youth who Reads", although it is a reproduction, it is still possible to clearly see the fineness of the figure's hair and the roundness of the picture. The portrayal of birds in "Love Birds" by the same person is completely a technique of Chinese gong strokes, which shows that the miniature paintings are constantly integrating the strengths of each family.
The exhibition also has many modern and contemporary miniature paintings, which tend to have a clearer author's style. A 21st-century painter, Ali Asgar Tajiwedi, whose several works are dominated by grand architectural grand scenes, skillfully uses the laws of perspective, but highlights the architectural ornamentation and the overall vivid color. These painters used their own techniques to enrich the language of miniature painting, and let this art discipline that carries culture and history continue to tell its story.
Photo courtesy of Shanghai Museum of Art