The Shahnama, or Book of Kings, was the most prominent illustrated text of the Mongol period.
Firdausi's epic sixty thousand couplet-long poem draws on Iran's history and mythology for its astonishingly vivid repertoire of figures and fables. The Shahnama delves into the histories of Iran's cultural heroes, villains, leaders and kings--both fictional and historical--over a breathtaking span of several centuries.
Calligraphers and artists lavished Firdausi's text with embellishment and accompanying images. The masterpiece of Ilkhanid painting is considered to be the fourteenth century Great Mongol Shahnama, which was the largest and most technically sophisticated manuscript of the Ilkhanid school at large. Within this one text, "one can trace the sequence from paintings that are simple illustrations to ones that are commentaries, then metaphors, and finally independent works of art operating confidently on several levels of meaning. More and more content--descriptive, emotional, historical, symbolic--is gradually pumped into these paintings, and only an absolutely assured command of pictorial language enables the greatest of these painters to control the forces that they unleash." [2]
The Shahnama continued to be illustrated for centuries after the Mongol conquest. Shah Ismail first encountered local Turkmen illustrations from the Shahnama as a young boy, while staying at the court of Karkiya Mirza Ali in Gilan from 1494-1499. The tales of epic battle, warrior-heroes, enchanted princesses and kings would have doubtlessly impressed and captivated the young boy's mind. It is not surprising,
then, that Ismail commissioned the creation of a royal Shahnama to commemorate the birth of his own son, Prince Tahmasp, around 1515.
Furthermore, as the first self-appointed Shah of the Safavid dynasty (which he had himself expanded to include most of Iran), Ismail adopted Persian models of government and bureaucracy. Ismail must have hoped that giving importance to the Shahnama would legitimize his claim of inheriting the Persian monarchy.
The royal Shahnama commissioned by Ismail yielded four paintings, the most famous being "Sleeping Rustam" (on view at Asia Society.) For unknown reasons, this manuscript project was then abandoned.
Prince Tahmasp would commission his own royal Shahnama, which would become the masterpiece of its day. A collaborative effort, "some fifteen painters, at least two calligraphers, two or more illuminators, gold sprinklers, binders, margin makers, paper burnishers and a team of assistants would have combined their skills to produce the most lavish manuscript seen in Iran for a century." [3]
Tahmasp's royal Shahnama is the culmination of the talents of several master artists. Sultan Muhammad, probably the first director of the Shahnama project, used a rich palette of color and emotion in his paintings. His early illustrations of Shahnama scenes are hectic: color-saturated architecture and textiles coexist with people, angels, whirlwinds, earth spirits, animals and clouds, all frozen in a moment of dramatic activity.
Mir Musavvir, the second director, had a much different approach to illustration. Linear, analytic and almost mathematical in its precision, Musavvir conjured a meticulous and composed world.
Aqa Mirak, a later contributor, would achieve balance in his complex compositions by eschewing symmetry and finding balance instead through the interrelationships of the vivid, sharp lines of his figures, architecture and landscape elements. These different styles do not produce dissonance but aptly animate the Shahnama text, itself a vivid and varied tale of many tales.
também daqui.
One thousand years ago, the Persian poet Firdawsi completed one of the greatest masterpieces of world literature: the Shahnama, or Book of Kings. Composed of some fifty thousand verses, the sweeping epic recounts the myths, legends, and "history" of Iran from the beginning of time to the Arab conquest in the seventh century.
daqui.
Iskandar é Alexandre.
Alexandre como é visto no livro dos reis.
To conclude the story of Iskandar, Firdawsi addresses the reader. "There is nothing in the world so terrible and fearful as the fact that one comes like the wind and departs as a breath. ... Whether you are a king or a pauper you will discover no rhyme or reason to it. But one must act well, with valor and chivalry, and one must eat well and rejoice: I see no other fate for you, whether you are a subject or a prince."
- -
Tabriz e Shiraz, uma colecção, aqui.
aqui no met para ver o livro dos reis.
No comments:
Post a Comment