Persian miniature
The book painting as a garden: jewel-bright pigments, high horizon, no shadows
How to recognise it
- High horizon with scenes stacked upward
- Pure bright colours and gold, no shading
- Figures with small oval faces
- Patterned carpets, tiles and flowering gardens
- Verses in panels within the picture
Why it emerged
The Mongol Ilkhanids brought Chinese scrolls and artists to Tabriz; later the Timurids and Safavids commissioned lavish Shahnameh and Nizami manuscripts in court workshops as tokens of legitimacy and taste.
Examples
Great Mongol Shahnamehc. 1330The first great illustrated Shahnameh: the Ilkhanid court fused Chinese and Iranian painting
Jami' al-tawarikh (Compendium of Chronicles)c. 1307 · Rashid al-Din (text)The first 'world history': its illustrations show China, India, Europe and the prophets
Shahnameh of Shah Tahmaspc. 1524–1540258 miniatures by Tabriz's finest masters — the summit of the Safavid bookThe Court of Gayumarsc. 1522 · Sultan MuhammadA page of Tahmasp's Shahnameh with faces hidden in rocks; often called the finest Persian miniatureMore in this style
- c. 1539–1543 Khamsa of Nizami (British Library, Or. 2265)
How it spread
- 1300 Tabriz
- 1370 Shiraz
- 1410 Herat
- 1520 Istanbul
- 1530 Bukhara
- 1549 Kabul, Humayun's court
Meanwhile elsewhere
- Byzantine art Europe
- Moorish style (al-Andalus) Europe
- Yamato-e, Heian Japanese painting Asia
- Ife and Benin bronzes Africa
- Gothic Europe
- Aztec Art Americas
- Ming and Qing Porcelain Asia
- Russian Icon Painting: Theophanes, Rublev, Dionisius Eastern Europe & Russia
- Italian Renaissance Europe
- Northern Renaissance Europe
- Inca Architecture Americas
- Classical Ottoman Architecture (Sinan) Middle East
- Mannerism Europe
- Mughal Art Asia
- Tented Churches Eastern Europe & Russia
- Baroque Europe
- Dutch Golden Age Painting Europe
- Latin American Baroque Americas