Description
Book SynopsisIn Esoteric Images: Decoding the Late Herat School of Painting Tawfiq Daʿadli decodes the pictorial language which flourished in the city of Herat, modern Afghanistan, under the rule of the last Timurid ruler, Sultan Husayn Bayqara (r.1469-1506). This study focuses on one illustrated manuscript of a poem entitled Khamsa by the Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi, kept in the British Library under code Or.6810. Tawfiq Daʿadli decodes the paintings, reveals the syntax behind them and thus deciphers the message of the whole manuscript. The book combines scholarly efforts to interpret theological-political lessons embedded in one of the foremost Persian schools of art against the background of the court dynamic of an influential medieval power in its final years.
Trade Review"L’auteur nous offre une belle synthèse des travaux antérieurs à ce sujet tout en proposant une interprétation nouvelle de certaines images." - Aïda El Hiari, Sorbonne-Université, in: Bulletin critique des Annales islamologiques 35 (2021) "Daʿadli’s book gives a good impression of the process of “decoding” paintings of the late Timurid period during more than forty years of scholarship and provides some new interpretations." - Ilse Sturkenboom, University of St Andrews, UK, in: Der Islam 97: 1 (2020)
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments List of Figures Introduction 1 Historical and Cultural Contexts 1 The Timurid Empire 2 The City of Herat 3 The Kitāb-khāna in Herat 4 Niẓāmī Ganjāvī 2 Focusing the Gaze in Late Timurid Painting 1 Hārūn al-Rashīd in the ḥammām 2 The King Who Turned into a Parrot 3 The Garden Master and the Maidens 4 Conclusion 3 The Iskandar Cycle 1 Iskandar and the Philosophers 2 Iskandar Beats the Drum 3 Iskandar Meets the Dervish 4 Conclusion 4 Making Justice 1 Khusrau before His Father Hurmuz-Shāh 2 Sultan Sanjar and the Old Lady 5 Death and Annihilation 1 Farhād’s Death 2 Laylī’s Husband’s Death 3 The Death of Majnūn 4 Building the Khawarnaq Palace 5 Conclusion 6 Concluding the Poetics of Painting 1 Enhancing the Meaning 2 Observations on Space 3 Conclusion Epilogue Bibliography Index
