Mawarannahr Book Painting [antikvár]

r ^A^HE EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY was marked by major histori-cal changes in Central Asia. Once a part of the Timurid empire, it was invaded in 1507 by nomadic Uzbeks led by Shaybani Khan, and a separate Shaybanid state, Mawarannahr,1 was formed on the territory between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, with Samarkand as its centre. Another part of the former Timurid empire, with Tebriz for its cap-ital, was ruled by the Safawi dynasty. There followed a turbulent century of struggle for the Timurid heritage between the two newly formed states, a struggle which was further aggravated by religious clashes. It was under these circumstances that the culture of Mawarannahr devel-oped in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was linked with the Timurid tradition reflecting at the same time the features of a nomadic, tribal mode of life and the tastes of the Shaybanids. These features mani-fested themselves, among others, in the art of manuscript illumination, the art of the miniature. By the time the Shaybanid state was formed that art had already made great progress, reaching its apogee towards the end of the fifteenth century in the Timurid capital of Herat. The production of manuscript books was a complex process involving the joint efforts of all the craftsmen employed in the court workshop (kitab-khana). Among these were expert calligraphers, skilful book-binders who fashioned the embossed leather covers or the lacquered boards, and, finally, illuminators who traced the exquisite interlacings of the frontispieces and adorned the borders of the manuscripts with golden patterns. Unlike European pagination, the pages of the manuscripts were numbered from right to left, according to the Arabic system, and that is how the action in the manuscripts unfolds. In the Middle Ages, when the main object of illustration in Europe was religious literature, illustrators in the East concentrated exclusively on works of a secular character. Religion rejected the use of illustrations as a means of propagating its ideas, preferring to rely instead on the power of the written word. People in the Oriënt treated words and letters with reverence, having faith in their divine origin and power. The art of the calligrapher was more highly regarded than the art of the illuminator, and although the latter's signature only occurs occasionally, almost every manuscript ends wiih a colophon page containing information about the calligrapher and the time and place of the manuscript's creation. This strictly enforced "pictorial ban" led to an unexpected result: illustrat-ing manuscripts of a secular character — historical chronicles, epic poems, collections of fables and moralizing tales — the miniaturists of the East enjoyed more freedom of expression than medieval Western artists. The fancy for calligraphy and the decorative embellishment of the text made each manuscript into a beautifully ornamented masterpiece. The text wou ld be prefaced by the blue-and-gold tracery of the frontispiece and headpiece which prepared the reader for an account of ceremonies of state or for a lyrical passage that followed. The titles of the manuscripts or the chapters, written in the sinuous Arabic script, were entwined in a vege-table ornament. Ornamental, too, are the miniatures themselves with 1,2 their elabórate contours and intricately arranged patches of colour. Spiral, iridescent clouds, flowering bushes uniformly spread across a level mead-12,19,35 ow, and symmetrically inclined figures — all this created the impression of an órnate carpet. The decorative embellishment of an Oriental book in the Middle Ages expressed the aesthetic ideáis of its time and was integrally linked both with the rhythms and metaphorical conventions of contemporary poetry and with its folk origins. The art of the miniature, like that of literature, was distinguished by its own "concept of the universe". People of the Oriënt regarded this life as a reflection of the other, true life. However, "that world" was created by man in imitation of "this world". He saw heaven as "the garden of oblivion", "the garden of bliss" and henee decorated his sepulchres with floral ornamentation. This grave is a flowering garden is the inscription on the portal of one of the mausoleums in the Shah-i Zindah complex in Samarkand. Apricot trees in blossom, the cool and comfort of an oasis, the murmur of water in a canal, irises and hollyhocks in the meadows — these were the things most cherished by people who lived in a hot, dry climate. Thus it is that Oriental miniatures depict an eternal spring. The landscape in the miniature was never concrete. Depictions of nature were a kind of "formula", where two or three trees represented a forest, a hill on the horizon, a mountain range, and a flower bed, a fragrant garden. The same device 6, 17 was used in other instances: several horsemen denote two battling armies; 29, 30 a dozen attendants, a crowd of courtiers. The faces in that crowd are almost always alike. Moreover, the heroes of epic poems and romances resembled one another closely. Characters have little individuality; each is treated according to a certain stereotype, reflecting his or her social status with the appropriate pattern of behaviour and embodying, in varying degrees, the ideal of beauty current at the time. In the Oriënt a light complexion was considered attractive and poets had coined the epithet "moon-face". A maiden's braids were likened to lassoes and her lips to rubies. Young heroes had "ant waists"; mighty warriors were said to have "elephant bodies". Miniatures correspondingly evolved certain unchanging types to represent king, warrior, maiden and oíd man. Ceremonial recep-tions and battles, philosophical discussions and love scenes were depicted in the same way, with no changes. The nuances of the hero's mood were conveyed by rhythm and colour, and by the "accompaniment" of the landscape background. Flat frontal representations of the human figure in which the latter was reduced to a purely ornamental shape were re-peated independently of the subject-matter. Such an approach excluded the possibility of sharp dramatic effects. Thus, for example, the severed heads and dismembered bodies bestrewing a battle-field would be incorpo-svdfnGuiistan\The Garden rated into a single design with a carpet of flowers or omamented horse-of Roses). 1566-67 j7 cloths and shields. Pubifc'ubrary, Lenfngrad. By the beginning of the sixteenth century man had not yet found a way New Persian series 0f expressing himself through the medium of art. Art, on the other hand, could not but reflect the life of society, its humanistic ideáis and the strug-AeKopaTHBHue „o™ gle between different social forces. cTpaHHUbi pyKonHCH When the Shaybanids came to power, they inherited the Herat culture and ro^MpcTBeHHaHH* 1566 1567 strove to support it, in an attempt to consolídate their links with former nyöjiHmiaH (Sx6jiHOTeKa dynasties. The stability of the house of the Shaybanids was strengthened HMeHH M. E. ©;aWTBiKöBa-UteapHha, , , . . . . . ., . . . , . f nHc-iio, n. 286 by dynastie marriages and confirmed by court ritual and the rnetoric oí