Micrographia: Toward a Visual Logic of Persianate Painting Author(S): David J

The President and Fellows of Harvard College Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology

Micrographia: Toward a Visual Logic of Persianate Painting Author(s): David J. Roxburgh Source: RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, No. 43, Islamic Arts (Spring, 2003), pp. 12-30 Published by: The President and Fellows of Harvard College acting through the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20167587 . Accessed: 06/01/2015 15:00

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Figure 1. Humay at the gate of Humayun's castle. Manuscript painting from the Three Masnavis of Khvaju Kirmani, copied by Mir Ali b. Ilyas al-Tabrizi al-Bavarchi, 1396, Baghdad. Opaque pigment and gold on paper, 281 x 191 mm (painted surface). London, British Library,Add. 18113, fol. 18b. (Photo: By permission of The British Library.)

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Toward a visual logic of Persianate painting

DAVID J. ROXBURGH

Persianate Shifting patterns of thought about painting, dynastie founder Timur (i.e., Tamerlane).1 Baysunghur's a movement taxonomic concerns that away from the books embody an aesthetic framed entirely in response become current in recent dominated early studies, have to the visual terms of the Jalayirid tradition.2 However, New lines of have years. investigation responded? the materials are prepared fastidiously, execution osmosis?to concerns in probably by historiographie becomes still more precise, and composition more the of art and contextual modes of historical history rigorously controlled. By ca. 1430, Baysunghur's books an awareness of inquiry. The results include increased had set the standard and put painting on an irreversible intersections the and among scholars, collectors, market, course. Developments in Herat represented a definitive a interest in studies of word and museums; revived movement away from the pictorial experimentation and about the image; questions meanings, functions, characteristic of fourteenth-century painting, best and values of book in the milieus of painting produced exemplified through the Great Mongol copy of the the courts of Iran and Central Asia. pre-modern Shahnama (Book of Kings), Firdawsi's epic. Made in Art historical narratives about Persianate painting western Iran before 1336, paintings such as Bahrain Gur generally hold that the tradition spanned three centuries fights the Karg (fig.2) differ from the laterJalayirid and and its broad outlines are (ca. 1300-1600) readily Timurid traditions by their larger painted surface area, available in studies. are synthetic Long recognized combination of flat color with expansive areas of wash, momentous in book inwestern Iran changes painting and coding of spatial recession by overlapping planes in the 1390s. One in manuscript particular, Khvaju and the bluish effect of atmospheric perspective. One Kirmani's Three Masnavis heralds the (dated 1396), can only assume that painters from the fifteenth century of will in Persianate arrival what become commonplace onward considered some aspects of the fourteenth This future ismanifest in oriented painting. vertically century pictorial language to be too indeterminate; from 1 a rich and compositions (fig. ), polychrome palette, the last years of the fourteenth century onward, the dense accumulations of rendered details. minutely By formal aspects of painting become increasingly coherent the mid-1390s?especially in books of poetry?the and codified. number of in a book became often paintings fewer, Although this narrative of a history of Persianate as few as it is not to notice the eight: impossible painting attends to broad changes in the formal aspects concentration of labor and resources that went into we of painting, are still left wondering, What is a these worked accords richly images. Scholarship Persianate painting? What are the salient visual features to such because of their importance paintings precisely of Persianate paintings and how does one encounter status: more in intermediary prospective orientation, these images? It is strange that such questions have not mark the of "classical" Persianate they beginnings been pursued and that the problems they raise have over. painting. been skipped In some respects, both painting and The form of discernable from the 1390s was painting book?its object carrier?seem to have been taken for embraced and refined in the first decades of the fifteenth granted or at least to have acquired a certain measure of century, especially in Herat under the patronage of a Timurid prince Baysunghur (d. 1433), grandson of the

1. The Timurid dynasty controlled the lands of Iran, Central Asia, and Afghanistan between the period 1370 and 1506. I to 2. would like thank Philippe-Alain Michaud and Sophie Makariou The Jalayirid dynasty (1336-1432) succeeded the Mongols to (Mus?e du Louvre); Cynthia Robinson (University of New Mexico); control the regions of Iraq and Azarbayjan. The "Jalayir" tribe was and Nasser Rabbat (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) for probably Mongol in origin. A succession of patrons made their courts to invitations present versions of this essay. I thank Renata Holod for (Baghdad, Tabriz) centers of literary and artistic achievement, on a her insightful remarks draft. especially Uvays (r. 1356-1374) and Sultan Ahmad (r. 1382-1410).

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Figure 2. Bahram Gur fights the Karg. Manuscript painting from the Great Mongol Shahnama of Firdawsi, before ca. 1336, Tabriz. Opaque pigment, gold and silver on paper, 210 x 290 mm (painted surface); 415 x 300 mm (folio). Cambridge, Mass., Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Bequest of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, accession no. 1960.190.2. (Photo: Courtesy of the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Bequest of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller.)

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like it."This humble desire to to others comes familiarity. This familiarity is caused in part by relying on give pleasure as rather a and a relief. . . . art historical paradigms developed for other artistic surprise (ibid. p. 14). traditions as well as from the way that most people This passage shows that some scholars recognize the or encounter Persianate paintings. In either publications inadequacy of Western paradigms for the analysis of exhibitions, a recently longstanding practice?only Persianate painting, and that formerly assumed cultural challenged?was to conceal the text adjacent to homologies do not exist: Persianate painting is "foreign." paintings. Now exhibition spaces combine cases But the assessment raises other problems by its emphases; open books and framed folios mounted on displaying first, the issue of the painter's volition, in an art form that the walls. The compromise endeavors to remind us that was collaborative; and second, by defining the painting a picture seen on a wall should be seen in a book, not as essentially pleasurable and pragmatic. In the same that this fact of Persian painting has passed without essay, the author writes that the Persianate painting is a comment.3 Scholars have yet to attend to the fact that place to escape the "confusion, tension, and cruelty of although the Persianate painting is dense and complex, the world around us," and urges us to contemplate albeit in "miniature/- it cannot be understood as an "these elaborate yet uncomplicated works with the autonomous object analogous to an easel picture of the . . simple eyes of children ., delighting in their beauty western European tradition.4 of line and richness of color, and enjoying the strange Focusing on the relationship between word and stories they tell. Their beauties are all on the surface; no a image?now emphasizing the painting's position in spiritual message or Freudian symbolism lurks beneath book?however, can result in the opposite extreme their exquisite forms and colors."7 For this scholar, where painting is only accounted for by its text. This Persianate painting is a curative, a palliative that can more recent approach of word and image studies dates restore the child within us. The painting is an experience to the 1970s. One tendency of these studies has been to of wonder, of seeing things in a way that is familiar to "match" image to text, identifying linkages between the memory yet forgotten, foreign but somehow known. pictorial content and textual content in often quite literal Intriguing inmost writing on Persianate painting is its and descriptive ways.5 Indeed, some scholars think that amnesiac quality, an insensitivity to the problems every picture is inspired by a text, one of them inherent to any analysis that would claim to be proposing that Persianate paintings are "in nine cases . . . a out of ten 'pictures with story/"6 that their a function?and one. 7. principal meaning?is story-telling Robinson's comments take off from remarks made by Eric On the of the same writes: question meaning, author Schroeder, who Robinson quotes in full: "There is, for instance, the interest of narrative in childish form in a itwould be when at a Persian loitering subtly organized Indeed, foolish, looking a very mature way, and perfected draughtsmanship which has yet or to ask the sort of that common us painting drawing, question springs something in with children's drawings and reminds of to mind when we Western art: "What can see contemplate pictorial something we no longer ourselves." After discussing terms is the artist's for us?" The Persian artist's is message message used by Muhammad Haydar Dughlat, Schroeder remarks: "They most men . . . simple and invariable: "This is the beautiful and praised the craftsman qualities in their of genius. Accepting as effective illustration Ican make to this story; I hope you will monotony and extravagance canons, let us proceed to judge the tension, the all-over thoroughness, and the seductive human grace of the design, the cold fluency of the execution, the high polish of the finishing" (ibid., pp. 11 and 13). to 3. As noted by Robert Hillenbrand, "The Uses of Space in Timurid It is difficult know if Robinson and Schroeder refer to the common Painting," in Timurid Art and Culture, ed. Lisa Golombek and Maria "innocent eye," the notion in the early twentieth century that was a Eva Subtelny (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992), pp. 76-102, 77; and Thomas children's art more objective, unfettered vision with closer access to W. Lentz, "Pictures for the Islamic Book: Persian and Indian Painting in artistic inspiration (because children lacked the extensive no. the Vever Collection," Asian Artl, 4 (Fall 1988): 9-35, esp. 12-13. social conditioning of adults). The ideas are summarized in Jonathan same 4. Otto Pacht made the point about medieval manuscripts Fineberg, "The Innocent Eye," Art News (April 1995): 118-125, esp. {Book Illumination in the Middle Ages: An Introduction [London and 119-120. Fineberg links the production of many vanguard artists to Oxford: Harvey Miller Publishers and Oxford University Press, 1986], concepts of children's art of the time (the subject of publications and pp. 9 and 155). exhibitions since the late nineteenth century), but missing is an 5. See Jerome Clinton, "Ferdowsi and the Illustration of the appraisal of forces that shaped notions about what was exemplary in Shahnameh," in Islamic Art and Literature, ed. Oleg Grabar and children's art. See the review by Sue Malvern, "The Ends of Innocence: Cynthia Robinson (Princeton, N.J.: Markus Wiener, 2001), pp. 57-78. Modern Art and Modern Children," Art History 23, no. 4 (November 6. B. W. Robinson, Drawings of the Masters: Persian Drawings 2000): 627-631. In his reference to children, Robinson seems to an to from the 14th Through the 19th Century (New York: Shorewood intend attitude painting that does not question what come across Publishers, 1965), p. 13. as unintuitive properties.

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Certain we historical. forces will always shape the way extends from the typological and diagrammatic modes our write about history, and it is impossible to escape of the mnemonic to figurai narrative. Elements in this concerns. presentist Of equal importance to paradigms repertoire of meaning-producing systems appear to have our that shape perceptions about Persianate painting been avoided in the pictures accompanying Persian is the language used to describe it. Deriving from books.9 Although no scholar has put it quite this way, I as preconceptions about Persianate painting, defined would argue that viewers of Persianate paintings are less western sure distinct from the visual modes of visual traditions, than about what they are expected to do in seeing the scholars' language also shapes our perception of them and that a comparativist framework is one of the an these images by establishing ambience of association root causes of uncertainty about meaning. for them. Adjectives such as "exquisite/' "beautiful," Limitations prevent the full elaboration of these "romantic," and "fantastic" put Persianate painting in questions in this essay, especially as they obtain to the the category of decoration and highlight the painting's development of image and word interaction. As one step us or our power to distract to transport minds, effectively toward them, however, Iwill focus here on questions deterring us from pursuing other questions about related to image and word interaction in the experience can as pictures.8 Inadvertently, language function both of using a book, the painting's narrative structure, symptom of and prescription for regression, reinforcing composition, and medium and materiality, as well as more the image of the child-viewer, denying Persianate specifically, how these aspects come together to a painting forms of complexity by prescribing only forge unique visual phenomenon. My emphasis on the disinterested looking. painting in itsmaterial context responds to two facts. Contrasts remain in the study of Persianate painting: First of all, that the Persian art historiographie tradition in the confounding choice of seeing painting at opposite does not discuss aspects of production or reception, vs. ends of a spectrum (painting as subservient to text though it does praise the painter's skill among other or painting as autonomous visual entity); in uncertainties practitioners. And secondly, that Persianate painting has about the existence of pictorial complexity?and if it is been ignored for too long and its ontology?what it is? thought to exist, then how do we define the nature of incompletely considered: evidence suggests that the that visual intelligence? It is here that differences "whats" of Persianate painting?material and pictorial between the Persianate painting and immediately effects and the practitioners' skill?carried more than a obvious comparative cultures of the book?western share of cognitive value. It is also my hope that by Medieval and Byzantine?become important. Ifpart of examining elements of Persianate painting?recurring an image's function was to embody meanings that could features that made it a unity over time?we will be more be decoded by means parallel to the hermeneutic sensitive to the visual tradition's historical and cultural procedures applied to texts, then Persianate painting particularities, freeing it up from the constraints of certainly could not be held equal to these antecedent comparative perspectives. and contemporary visual cultures. Cycles of paintings and individual images in Persian books focus intently on Image and word in comic books10 the development of increasingly complex and detailed environments for their subjects, combining non-optically Other scholars have compared Persianate painting to was naturalist depictive modes with abstracted surfaces for the comic book, but I initially suspicious of the or are were so clothing architecture (both representational). comparison because their references to it Virtually absent from Persianate paintings found in a 9. Persianate could be as or works of literature, history, and biography is developed paintings that interpreted allegories visual both of which become in and consistent iconographie system of signs, symbols, possessing puns, increasingly apparent the self-referential of the sixteenth remain and attributes, or a of visual modalities that heightened painting century, spectrum unstudied. would match the range evidenced in a similarly 10. Critical texts on the comic book are scarce, but the following restricted of a culture. category comparative manuscript are useful: Francis Lacassin, "The Comic Strip and the Film Language/' The western Medieval manuscript tradition, for example, Film Quarterly 25, no. 4 (1972): 11-23; Pierre Fresnault-Deruelle, La Bande Dessin?e: L'Univers et les techniques de quelques 'comics' note 13. aesthetic features 8. Also noted by Lentz (see 3), p. The d'expression fran?aise (Paris: Hachette, 1972); Charles Wooley, were surfaces of of Persianate painting doubly decorative?abstracted Wooley's History of the Comic Book 1899-1936: The Origin of the were even the ca. pattern making used for architecture and figurative Superhero (Lake Buena Vista, Florida: 1975); and David Carrier, ran elements of the painting against the mimetic tradition of The Aesthetics of Comics (University Park, Penn.: Pennsylvania State verisimilitude. University Press, 2000).

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as to to allusive make it difficult understand what they Persianate book without reading, to leaf through its really intended.11 In the end Idecided to pursue the folios to find the paintings located at intervals between see as a comparison to if the comic book could function pages of text. And some paintings, such as the common use heuristic device for the Persianate painting. I the double-page enthronement, had no immediate origin in comic book as experimental evidence with full a text. For both the Persianate book and the comic book a recognition that it is quintessentially modern medium the act of reading/seeing is an intimate, interiorizing of communication?indeed, this fact configures various experience that enlists the mind and body in a symbiotic utilities. It is also worth repeating the obvious?modern engagement which cannot be compared to the act of us media, like the comic book, have habituated to viewing a painting on the vertical wall of a room. sense certain patterns and methods of making of images One example can help to illustrate these various and words. It is for this reason that I have selected points. The next three illustrations show a sequence of examples from the most recent comic books and have six pages from Marvel Comics's Ultimate Marvel Team not to or attempted match Persianate painting to what I ?p issue involving Spider-Man and the Hulk. The first as anyone else might perceive its closest kin in the double-page layout (fig. 3) is in a canonical format. The to a history of the comic book. The objective is begin with first page shows series of splintered frames?introduced a comparison that is historically anachronistic as a point by the word RUMMBLE?whose borders are demarcated of to to entry the Persian painting, and then articulate its by white margins; figures extend beyond these spatial particular features?as object and image. boundaries in two places, augmenting by visual means The principal and most obvious value of the comic the dialogue between staff members of the newsroom. book for exposing the logic of Persianate painting lies in Just when the chief reporter orders his staff onto the its combination of image and word, and in its size and street to scoop the front page story (about which we are format. Like the Persianate book, the comic book as yet unsure), we see the last two cells: at the left, on a of run depends tightly integrated sequence images and figures from the office, and at the right a are a words that viewed in field that measures on trigonometry textbook lies closed on the table and 260 x 180 mm The in over an average per page. physical space papers fall empty stool. The swift departure of which finds or the reader himself herself immersed is the figure causes the papers to fly into the air. All of a comparable. One reads, sees, and makes sense of a sudden we are on the next page and out on the window a story in circumscribed visual field that is encountered ledge of the newspaper office, many floors above in the format of an is object?a book?that slightly ground, positioned before a running Spider-Man. A in or tipped up before the eyes and held one's hands dramatic shift of perspective sets us beneath him as he on a that lies flat surface. The story advances as the eye fires his silky web, and a third shift takes us several scans on as image and word the page and the hand floors below to see Spider-Man's descent (he is now a turns successive pages. Tempo changes according to black silhouette). The second page is structured as three such variables as text type (e.g., the difference between integrated bands that show different perspectives of the or and the a endlessly rhyming poetry non-rhyming prose), hero, line of speech bubbles containing his thoughts, a desire to on an It is also to use a linger ?mage. possible mixture of duty, reflection, and anxiety. Ifwe were in danger of being hypnotized by the medium's truth value, Spider-Man's final speech bubble snaps us out of it. this not answers 11. Turning page does 4). As Barbara Brend, "Beyond the Rale: Meaning in the Margin," in provide (fig. Persian we are uncertain of what is fear and Painting From the Mongols to the Qajars: Studies in honour of yet, causing Basil W. on Robinson, ed. Robert Hillenbrand (London and New York: commotion the streets below; why the citizens are I. B. and "Toward an Tauris, 2000), pp. 39-55, 39; Oleg Grabar, running in terror; why the boss ordered his reporters to Aesthetic Persian of Painting," in The Art of Interpreting, ed. Susan C. the street. Five panoramas, running across the next two Scott (University Park, Penn.: Pennsylvania State University, 1995), pp. pages, show the street and trace descent. 129-163, p. 138. Marianna Shreve Simpson?who made the Spider-Man's In the middle senses the comparison earlier?is extremely precise, noting the textual band, Spider-Man possible of illustrations to the Shahnama in the of cause of sees dependence early years the the commotion when he footprints fourteenth The Illustration of an The Earliest century (idem, Epic: hammered into the concrete sidewalk?"Oh boy, this Shahnama Manuscripts [New York and London: Garland Publishers isn't good"?"is that a footprint?" In the next panorama, Inc., 1979], 203-204). describes the illustrations in the pp. Simpson a car is small as hurtled the air to Shahnama "picture stories," somewhere halfway between through causing Spider-Man and fall backward. In the last pictographs paintings. She also notes that the paintings do not "by very panorama Spider-Man themselves narrate a progression of events in visual form." regains his balance and leaps into the middle distance

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Figure 3. Spider-Man and the Hulk. From Ultimate Marvel Team-Up, Issue 2, vol. 1, no. 2 (May 2001), pp. 8-9. Published by Marvel Comics, a division of Marvel Enterprises Inc. (Comic book material: and ? 2002 Marvel Characters, Inc. Used with permission.)

(shown in the register above). A tiny passage of green to connected to what comes before or after, neither the right?a flexing bicep?hints at what is to come. spatially contiguous nor in temporal sequence (they as a The scene of discovery fills the third double-page might be simultaneous snapshots of different locations). single image?Spider-Man confronting the bellicose When this visual structure is used?analogous to a a scene green Hulk amid of urban destruction (fig. 5). machine-gun-fire of image after ?mage brattatatata? By using the most direct compositional devices?the narrative coherence is jeopardized in favor of drama and are cartoon artist's cheap shot?we placed below the the visual storytelling can become paratactical, akin to terrifying and angry Hulk, a position we come to hold sentences without coordinating connectives (as in "he with Spider-Man (with whom the preceding pages have laughed"; "she cried"). In film it is described as "bad us already made identify by image and word).12 This narrative breakdown" or "taking place off camera"13 sequence of six pages underscores the temporal where the gaps between cause and effect are too big experience inherent in a process of reading integrated and create the potential for ambiguity. To counter this with seeing and shows us not only how the tale is told undesirable effect, the accompanying text in the comic but also how it can be carried suspensefully to its conclusion. Many other narrative structures are employed in the 13. As noted by Carrier (see note 10), p. 55. Think of Roy Lichtenstein's method of cells from the comic book's comic book. One is the presentation of successive excerpting single sequential cell structure and making the single cell stand for the images that stand alone?the images are not immediately whole. The action created interpretative problems for the viewer. See Lawrence L. Abbott, "Comic Art: Characteristics and Potentialities of a no. 4 12. On the variation of frame size and viewing angle, see Lacassin Narrative Medium," Journal of Popular Culture 19, (Spring 1986): (see note 10), p. 15. 155-176, esp. 155.

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Figure 4. Spider-Man and the Hulk. From Ultimate Marvel Team-Up, Issue 2, vol. 1, no. 2 (May 2001), pp. 10-11. Published by Marvel Comics, a division of Marvel Enterprises Inc. (Comic book material: and ? 2002 Marvel Characters, Inc. Used with permission.)

book becomes heavier to explain the interrelationship by onomatopoeia and securing meaningful between successive visual cells. communication between what we see and what we understand. Image and word are completely in this communicative discourse and Word and in the Persian book interdependent ?mage indeed the distinction between the two can be One of the crucial aspects of experiencing a blurred.14 In the Persianate painting, however, ?mage Persianate painting is that it is seen in a book and is follows after word in a linear sequence; the text discovered by turning pages, most likely after reading. introduces and follows after the image, but it is not No illustrated Persian book matches the comic book actually read when the ?mage ?sbeing viewed. In other for rate of illustration, even those literary genres (e.g., words, although the temporal experience of Persian are sense a historical writing) that retained a higher rate of illustration book and comic book similar, making of a constant throughout the fifteenth century and after. The comic comic book requires shuttling between image book is a constant flow of images, a potential that the and word. In the Persian book the act of seeing is Persian book may indeed hold?after all, any number initiated by a process of remembering the narrative just of its stories could be made into ?mages?but never told. Moreover, that text does not prepare the viewer for actualized. A small number of developed compositions what will be seen in the painting. tends to be the rule. But this distinction touches on only one aspect of difference. Another has to do with a reversal of balance between word and The image. 14. This occurs through the manipulation of the letter's allographs comic book uses text to narrate or dialogue monologue features (font, color, shape, size). The crumpled edges of "RUMMBLE" serves as an (spoken out loud or said to oneself), conveying sounds in fig. 3 example.

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Figure 5. Spider-Man and the Hulk. From Ultimate Marvel Team-Up, Issue 2, vol. 1, no. 2 (May 2001), pp. 12-13. Published by Marvel Comics, a division of Marvel Enterprises Inc. (Comic book material: and ? 2002 Marvel Characters, Inc. Used with permission.)

are So how subjects chosen for depiction in the (fig. 1 and fig. 6) show this technique of bracketing, of Persian book integrated with text? As noted earlier, how text precedes the image and then follows after it. Khvaju Kirmani's Three Masnavis (dated 1396) is held to Although the surface area of the painting expands so common represent the beginnings of what would become considerably that the relevant text can be imperiled, in custom practice the Persian book, especially the of the text is rarely banished from the page. We might granting the book a few developed compositions. It sometimes have to hunt to find it, as in these two serves as a good example of ?mage and word integration. paintings, but it is almost always there. In both one The book comprises three of Khvaju Kirmani's masnavis examples, the text is reduced to couplet of poetry.16 measure (a poem composed of distichs corresponding in In the painting of Humayun revealing her female gender and containing a pair of rhymes), the Humay u Humayun, to Humay by removing her helmet, after their combat, Kamal-nama (Book of Perfection), and Rawzat al-anvar the text reads "The plain-faring horse kicked up the level are (Garden of Lights).15 The texts independent from ground/And the turning heavens were hidden by dust." each other. Of the three, the first masnavi is the most Other paintings in the Three Masnavis, for example illustrated, having six paintings in all (the entire book Malikshah accosted by the old woman in the Rawzat contains nine). Two paintings from the first masnavi al-anvar, have more text embedded in them than the

x mm u 15. London, British Library, Add. 18113, 93 fols., 320 235 16. Khvaju Kirmani, Humay Humayun, ed. Kamal Ayni (Tehran: x (folio), 181 127 mm approx. (text pages). Nasta'liq script in four Bunyad-i Farhang-i Iran, 1348 [1969]): fol. 18b, Humay at the gate of u columns, twenty-five lines to the page. Humay Humayun, fols. Humayun's castle, p. 126, line 4; fol. 23a, Humay recognizing 1 as removes b-49a; Kamal-nama, fols. 50b-78b; Rawzat al-anvar, fols. 79b-93a. Humayun she her helmet after their fight, p. 147, line 13.

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Figure 6. Humay recognizing Humayun as she removes her helmet after their fight. Manuscript painting from the Three Masnavis of Khvaju Kirmani, copied by Mir Ali b. Ilyas al-Tabrizi al-Bavarchi, 1396, Baghdad. Opaque pigment and gold on paper, 294 x 202 mm (painted surface). London, British Library,Add. 18113, fol. 23a. (Photo: By permission of The British Library.)

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The second uses more text and a previous two examples17?in fact, both paintings in this type comparatively textual that is a transition between structural masnavi contain much more text than the paintings in passage elements of the text from a discourse to its Humay u Humayun. In the painting of Malikshah and (moving as inMalikshah accosted the old woman. the old woman, a broad swath of text appears to float example), by The of with text evidences different over the pictorial space which continues behind to integration ?mage kinds of and often culminate in leafy trees and a golden sky. The five thought required significant planning. To introduce a with one the couplets immediately preceding the ?mage describe painting couplet required on of the text. The text had to be slowed Malikshah's desire to go hunting, and how the edge manipulation down to allow for a break at the moment so that of the Zandarud river an old woman 'leapt up and took right the could be allotted a whole his rein," saying '"O! You world-conquering king!'"18 painting page.20 Slowing now the text down either the addition of or The text quite literally brings us into the here and required couplets of the narrative moment, a threshold that we cross over a reduction in the number of couplets that could be on a To achieve the desired into the visual realm of the painting. On the next page, copied single page. reduction?for the text continues with the old woman's complaint example, eight couplets?some hemistichs were written on a a about the king's tyranny and injustice. The masnavi diagonal, filling space woman with half as much as ?tcould be made to and section (hikayat) treating Malikshah and the old contain, the leftover illuminated. Such a of is flagged by a block of colored and larger scaled spaces manipulation had the desired result of the surface writing, a rubric summarizing the text. Immediately before tempo maximizing area of the and of the text to the it come twelve couplets that conclude the preliminary painting using bring reader into the discourse on the "justice of the great" {mazammat-i painting. While Persian books show the close kubar). An identical arrangement is found in the second many "keying" of to numerous are those painting in the Rawzat a\-anvar, Nushirvan and image text, equally examples where the follows after the folios of text to Buzurgmihr in conversation. painting which it ismost connected. The of a The paintings in the Three Masnavis can be divided directly danger contextual disconnect to the were into two types, but both involve a literal integration painting's legibility averted most often than not an between text and image, a staging of the image inwhich by introductory caption, are a rubric that the narrative content pictorial content is keyed to relevant text. First, there encapsulated proper of the Such in of those with as little as a single couplet carefully selected painting. captions appear manuscripts the such as the Great of the to serve as a transitional point leading the reader into Shahnama, Mongol copy or Shahnama and continued to be used in books of the painting?these are often the most metaphorical (fig. 2), the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The drama-laden, as in Humay and Humayun in combat.19 captions offered another means of bringing the reader into the was a painting, but what they also did to enable of or visual of a 1 7. Humay u Humayun, ed. Ayni: fol. 3b, Bihzad found by Humay sequential viewing images, study single without that the text be read. And and Azar Afruz drunk, p. 51, lines 15-18, p. 52, lines 1-4 (seven image, requiring given at court of the of were couplets); fol. 12a, Humay the faghfur Chin, p. 94, that many of these stories and their texts already in a lines 11-12 (two couplets); fol. 40b, Humay and Humayun garden feasting and listening to music, p. 203, lines 17-18, and p. 204, lines on most 1, 5-7, and 13 (seven couplets); fol. 45b, Humay, day after the the separation from the painting of the couplet literally over as to it "When the love wedding, has gold coins poured him he leaves Humayun's connected (Fitzherbert [note 18], p. 143), viz., /The one drew the helmet room, p. 21 7, line 3 (one couplet). Kamal-nama: fol. 64b, Ali nourishing king took his dagger fairy-faced an Fitzherbert that the theme threatening infidel with his sword (11 couplets). Rawzat al-anvar from her head/' suggests poem's (the a and is (Khvaju Kirmani, Rawzat al-anvar, ed. H. Kuhi Kirmani [Tehran: Majlis, journey of soul), told through Humay Humayun's love, in mirror 1306/1927]): fol. 85a, Malikshah accosted by an old woman, p. 66, embodied the painting by the metaphor of the image. to it is structured lines 9-20, p. 67, lines 1-5 (seventeen couplets); fol. 91a, Nushirvan Representing the self coming self-recognition, of The and Buzurgmihr in conversation, p. 92, lines 5-17, p. 92, lines 18-20, visually by pairs like things (e.g., figures, horses, trees). painting a word that relies on the near and p. 93, lines 1-5 (nineteen couplets). invokes tajnis (alliteration), play In of a 18. Translations taken from Teresa Fitzherbert, "Khwaju Kirmani identical shapes of words. this way, discursive parallels are the (689-753/1290-1352): An Eminence Grise o? Fourteenth Century figurative order established between the painting and specific it Persian Painting," Iran 29 (1991): 137-151, 143. couplet selected for (ibid.). 20. an see Marianna Sultan Ibrahim 19. Comparing the 1396 manuscript (London) to the earliest dated For example, Shreve Simpson, A from manuscript of 1349-1350 (Tehran), Fitzherbert shows that the five Mirza's Haft Awrang: Princely Manuscript Sixteenth-Century Iran New and London: Freer of Art couplets before the painting of Humay and Humayun in combat do (Washington, D.C., Haven, Gallery not appear in the Tehran recension. She suggests that this resulted in and Yale University Press, 1997), p. 64.

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well known, the absolute functional relationship of text book was not unprecedented in the Persian art to image is questionable. I can only note the possibility tradition.23 Although monoscenic narratives appear to be a can of an act of seeing that was reading-free because the synchronous moment in time they in fact be read as a history of Persian reading, especially the cultural several discrete moments running continuously in over practices of reading and the diverse functions of books, m?l?e the picture's surface. The trick is to learn remains unwritten. Yet another complication involves the how to read the images, to decipher causes and effects. metatextual dimensions of the painting, where a It is intriguing that the method chosen to visualize depicted subject can refer to versions of a story other narratives in Persianate paintings was the monoscenic than the one given in its object-carrier (one example composition arrayed in a developed and detailed discussed later is the seduction of Yusuf from a Bustan of painting and not the sequence of paintings showing Sa'di).21 successive narrative moments in time. One of the There are other ways to think about how text and aspects that made it a viable choice was the eschewal, image were combined. One is through the various or the non-use, of a single-point perspectival scheme to compositional shapes used in books; these may often be organize elements in a pictorial space. The comic book a stepped, creating visual fusion with the text columns. again becomes useful as a comparative tool. Obviously, The picture's contents may also extend beyond the frame comic book images?particularly at the level of the defined by the textblock and into the margins to create single cell?are derived from a way of showing the an an extra-pictorial space and extra-textual dimension world that is photographic, and many of the visual tricks for the image. In the production of most manuscripts, employed in the comic book are remediations of was on the text copied the sheet by the calligraphier photography.24 By retaining this perspectival and before the artist began his work. In this way, the photographic conception, a larger number of successive a textblock established framework for the page. It is image cells is essential?the narrative cannot move most often the case that the dominant axes formed by forward without them in much the same way that a text serve as the anchors for the arrangement of the movie would not be much of a movie with only a picture's contents, its figures and architectural structures, handful of celluloid frames. The recurring sequence of as a series of vertical markers, invisible sight-lines. Rages images provides constant clarification of relationships as as one devoted to painting and with little couplet between things and it is a way of seeing to which our to even tended follow this principle of arrangement eyes have become accustomed. For this reason, making was no to so. in one sense can a though there need do Hence, way of Persianate paintings be challenging and or another, the text is present in the painting regardless counter-intuitive enterprise. of whether or not there is a significant amount of writing. A good example is a painting from a Shahnama of Firdawsi (fig. 7), datable to ca. 1530 and made in Tabriz for the Safavid ruler Shah Tahmasp. It shows the Monoscenic composition nightmare of Zahhak. In this painting the tyrannical Persianate paintings tend to use a continuous space that infers a single temporal moment, a representation of 23. The a one instant in time.22 In this respect the Persianate best known example is stain- and overglaze-decorated [mina'i) beaker dated to the thirteenth (Freer of painting also differs from the comic book's endless early century Gallery Art, Washington, D.C.). Its three tiers show compartmentalized scenes sequence of cells, this most common image although in narrative sequence, each scene one moment from the narrative of visual of narrative in the comic Bizhan A in same technique structuring and Manizha. large plate the ceramic technique and at same a made the time, also in the Freer Gallery of Art, depicts battle a manner in comparable to the complex monoscenic compositions of 21. Renata a Holod examined the metatextual and metapictorial fifteenth-century book painting. These ceramics show set of options a aspects of painting in Shiraz in the sixteenth century in conference for depicting narrative. she at Harvard 24. was paper presented University inMay 1999. "Remediation" coined by Jay David Bolter and Richard 22. To Kurt Weitzmann was the to coin Grusin in my knowledge, first the their study of what they term the "double logic of term "monoscenic" in Roll and A (Illustrations Codex: Study of the remediation," the simultaneous urge for immediacy and hypermediacy and Text new Origin Method of Illustration [Princeton, N.J.: Princeton in media technologies. A large part of their book concerns the He it as on new as University Press, 1970). defined "based the principle of the ways that digital media "borrow avidly from each other as well one unity of time and place," and continued, "Now only single action from their analog predecessors such as film, television, and is in a and the and The represented picture, increasingly expressive photography." combination of media results in hypermediacy individualized of all the are related to one gestures participants precise [Remediation: Understanding New Media [Cambridge, Mass., and moment" (ibid., p. 14). London: MIT Press, 1999], p. 9).

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Figure 7. The nightmare of Zahhak. Manuscript painting from the Shahnama-yi Shahi made for Shah Tahmasp, Tabriz, between ca. 1522 and 1535, fol. 28b. Opaque pigment, gold and silver on paper, 348 x 278 mm (painted surface). Cambridge, Mass., Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, 0672.1983. (Photo: Courtesy of the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Private Collection.)

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ruler Zahhak has just woken from a terrible nightmare in his beauty. Before the narrative moment represented in which he meets his nemesis, the hero who will bring an the painting, Zulaykha leads Yusuf through a series of end to the ruler and his injustices. As Zahhak wakes, the seven rooms, each one decorated with erotic themes of palace trembles as if in an earthquake, waking the lovemaking; she locks each door behind them. The ladies of the harem. The palace is structured as two tall scene depicted is the moment when Zulaykha professes pavilions connected by an elevated walkway. The largest her love for Yusuf and makes amorous advances toward over a pavilion rises tiled parterre and well-tended him. She falls to her knees and pulls at his arm. gardens lead away from the palace. Although some Although Yusuf is hidden away from all witnesses, he sense can of volume in space is conveyed by axonometry, realizes that God still see, and hoping to maintain the spatial logic of the architecture requires that we read his chastity, he tries to escape. By some miracle, the our it from changing viewpoints to be assumed by doors that Zulaykha has locked will fly open to aid imagination. We must accept that we can see inside the Yusufs escape. same see private chambers of Zahhak, and at the time The painting depicts a dense and complex a on from side view the figures the roof. We must architectural unit that integrates text into its structure; it understand that although the sleeping youth at the lower is another good example of how text columns can man a right straddles the axonometric steps, the guarding demarcate the major axes of painting. Once again, the door above him is literallybeyond him, and that the deciphering the pictorial space requires shifts of tipped up plane we see the youth sit on is conceived perspective. We read some spaces as views from the seen in plan view while the guard is from the side. outside?like the balcony?and other spaces as cross Combinations of viewing perspectives?plans and sections that are in many respects like a doll's house. seven elevations, interiors and exteriors?occur throughout Although the rooms are not depicted, the a a this painting and others. These techniques permit complex visual rendering of sequence of rooms, to come as an multiplicity of pictorial elements into the shown interlocking array of trapezoidal planes and create a painting, where they dense matrix of information. vertical rectangles intersected with helter-skeltering text, are as a The expectation that perspectives not static, in stands metaphorically for the labyrinthine space that single-perspectival scheme, allows the viewer to make Yusuf has entered and from which he must now escape. sense of the composition while its careful design, the And even after he has left this interior and finds his way manipulation of interval between figures, and the out to the patio below, he must negotiate a high across distribution of colors the painting, knit the image perimeter wall that is in itself blocked, cut short by the a into unified entity. text panels below. A monoscene second example of the is from a Bustan Like the painting showing Zahhak's nightmare, the (Orchard) by Sa'di dated 1488 and made in Herat for painting of Yusuf and Zulaykha can be seen as a fusion Sultan Husayn Mirza, the last Timurid ruler.25 In this of single compositional units, a series of contiguous we see a scene painting from the story of Yusuf and cells that organize the picture. And yet, in each example Zulaykha (fig. 8). Zulaykha, Potiphar's daughter, has it is the subject matter of "architecture" that necessitates in was fallen love with the prophet Yusuf who famed for this visual result. The choice of a monoscenic composition and of opening up all spaces for the eye to see allowed 25. Cairo, General Book Adab Farsi 908. Egyptian Organization, the painting to contain a maximum number of narrative Bustan of 54 fols., 305 mm x 215 mm, Sultan Ali al Sa'di, copied by InZahhak's this are: a components. nightmare allows for the Mashhadi. The paintings double-page painting showing a at full visual of the that the celebration Sultan Husayn Mirza's court; King Dara and the development courtly circle, is, a Herdsman; The Beggar at Mosque; A discussion at the Court of a ruler's harem, guards, attendants, and sundry other and The seduction of Yusuf Qadi; by Zulaykha. palace workers. The painting is populated by numerous Of interest in a this latter example is that the relevant text played InYusuf and the content is the minimal role in the artist's of the Lisa figures. Zulaykha, informing depiction setting. architecture: the Golombek noticed that the text multiple perspectives fragment that inspired the painting is actually by a architecture to create a that the poet Jami, mystical allegory of Yusuf and Zulaykha completed in metaphorical space conveys 1483. Golombek out between the Yusufs a points analogies painting and Jami's anxiety. Architecture becomes subject and thus where is "more than a for an event. It a poem, Zulaykha's palace setting vehicle of visual narration; the building's fabric is is a a mystical image, symbol for the splendor of the material world into of cause and how seven fragmented relationships effect; with its climes represented as seven rooms" (idem, "Toward a architecture ismade becomes a story. Classification of Persian Painting," in Islamic Art in the Metropolitan Museum of This of the world in form has Art, ed. Richard Ettinghausen [New York: Metropolitan way showing painted Museum of Art, 1972], pp. 23-34, 28). critical implications for the "story-telling" dimension of

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Figure 8. The seduction of Yusuf. Manuscript painting from a Bustan of Sa'di, copied by Sultan AM al-Katib [al-Mashhadi] for Sultan Husayn Mirza, dated Rajab 893 (June 1488). Opaque pigment and gold on paper, 305 x 215 mm (folio). Cairo, General Egyptian Book Organization, Adab Farsi 908. (Photo: Courtesy of Cairo, General Egyptian Book Organization, Adab Farsi 908, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art.)

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the painting. In both of these examples, the initial the actions of single figures and interactions among men women a impression of the monoscene is of a frozen narrative groups of and is fundamental response. moment, of the eye capturing a split second of activity.26 The multifaceted treatment of architecture in Zulaykha's same Iam This impression is particularly evident in the painting of palace produces the visual effect. What once even a Yusuf and Zulaykha. We see the two figures only proposing is that if the painting does depict our and at the culminating moment of seduction, and do not single moment, experience of the painting?by the see successive images of Yusuf moving through room power of its compositional makeup and itsmany can over cause after room. The multiple figures in Zahhak's palace details?occurs time and reading chains of also be read as an instantaneous view. And yet, the and-effect is an inevitable interpretation that we apply to architecture in each example subdivides the space, the image.30 Of course, this is true of almost any image creating the potential to read space as time, or spatial that holds the potential to become narrativized, but the so seen a interval as time passing.27 In doing, the composition intimacy of the painting in book and itsminiature emphasizes duration in the beholder's experience of size only amplify the effect of time passing. Quite to see. the image.28 simply put, it takes longer Time as duration?and not only as instant?enters into the paintings by other means too. By representing Medium and materiality multiple perspectives, the paintings do not control the a are viewer's bodily relationship to surface, as in single Medium and materiality critical for the particular seems point perspectival scheme, but allow the viewer's head ontology of the Persianate painting. It accurate to to move from side to side and up and down. The eye is generalize that, ever since the time of Baysunghur's free to roam over the painting's surface because it does manuscript patronage in the early fifteenth century, not dictate a fixed position. Another critical aspect of the artists sought to refine both the materials and execution paintings that doubles their effect of temporal duration is of painting.31 Technical virtuosity and perfection of the complexity of gesture, facial expression, and bodily execution became of paramount importance and artists were position that we see in the figures that populate the praised for it inwritten sources. The preference for a nightmare of Zahhak and other paintings.29 Interpreting "micrographia" is suggested in progress report (arzadasht), written ca. 1430 to Baysunghur, where the writer states: "On the day this report is being written 26. Martin Dickson and Stuart Cary Welch {The Houghton Mawlana AN is designing a frontispiece illumination for Shahnameh, 2 vols. [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, the Shahnama. His were sore for a few At 1981], 1:90), describe the painting in this way, likening the nightmare eyes days."32 of Zahhak to a moment caught by a fast camera. the end of that century, Khvandamir, the historian and 27. Noted by Hillenbrand (see note 3), p. 78. courtier to the last of the Timurid rulers in Iran, Sultan 28. The limitations of the narrative when as perceived represented Mirza (d. 1506), described the artist Bihzad in a Husayn single moment were noted by Lessing in 1766 {Laokoon oder ?ber the following way: "Through his mastery the hair of his die Grenzen der Malerei und Poesie), where he suggested that to avert [Bihzad] brush has life to inanimate form / In this problem the artist must "choose the instant that ismost laden with given most of nature is is no significance: that which makes clear all that has preceded and is precision he hair splitting, and this to follow." To this Husserl's added the proposition phenomenology exaggeration."33 "Hair-splitting" (mu-shikaf), an terms "retentional" and described as an "protentional," by Kemp adjective applied originally to the minuteness of the awareness of the retentions and present accompanied by protentions could be used as a or painter's brushes, equally synonym memories and expectations. See Wolfgang Kemp, "Narrative," in for the artist. And a after Critical Terms for Art History, ed. Robert S. Nelson and Richard Shiff miracle-working nearly century to (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1992), pp. Khvandamir, Qazi Ahmad looked back the time of 58-69, 64. 29. These kinds of complexities in the structuring of narrative were examined by Alois Riegl in his final studyDas holl?ndische Film studies were to his sees Gruppenport?t (1902). quick develop 30. Clinton is disturbed by what he as paintings' the terms and propositions, developing diegesis, gaze structure, scopic "dramatically intrusive" nature?how the painting "immobilizes to discuss identifications" the regime "point-of-view provided by characters and action even when the event depicted is embedded in a camera as itwas into a inserted "network of glances" (perspectival fluid, ongoing narrative" (see note 5, p. 67). is the term used in focused on presentation equivalent literature). Riegl 31. As also noted by Robinson (see note 6), p. 14. "communicated communication," the ways that paintings can convey 32. Trans, inWheeler M. Thackston, Album Prefaces and Other cohesions kinds of with on group only through specific relationship Documents the History of Calligraphers and Painters, Studies and viewer the ("external coherence" by including viewer; "internal Sources in Islamic Art and Architecture 10 (Leiden: Brill, 2001), p. 43. coherence" by fiction of non-viewer). See Kemp, note 28, pp. 67-68. 33. Ibid., p. 42.

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Timur: "[Umar Aqta] wrote a copy of the Qur'an in well considered. The restricted palette is used to unify was so to ghubar writing; it small in volume that it could the surface of the painting and camouflage certain . . . be fitted under the socket of a signet ring. Umar elements within it, especially the numerous animals Aqta wrote another copy, extremely large, each of its located amid the rocks. The density of visual content a even lines being cubit in length and longer."34 Umar squeezed into this image?with apparent ease?requires Aqta's minutely copied Qur'an was not met with favor long and patient analysis. by Timur, so the calligrapher made the opposite. These and other references in the of written sources corpus Themes of was an seeing imply that the quest for minuteness of execution a expectation and that it became one of the criteria of There is wonderful set of oppositions at work in the a aesthetic judgment.35 Persianate painting that results from unique confluence In paintings from the Chahar Maqala (Four Discourses) of factors: they include the dimensions and format of the of Nizami Arudi, made for Baysunghur in 1431, the book, compositional paradigms, spatial conception, paintings have become increasingly small in dimension, and medium and material. The Persianate painting's x mm. some as little as 102 72 The pigment is applied diagrammatic composition?stacking elements up the with such perfect execution that no trace of the brush is page's vertical axis?and its spatial code of multiple left; in fact, the execution left no trace of manual points of perspective seem to afford the eye access to our move to or out production. No matter how close eyes the everything. Nothing is concealed positioned of surface of the picture?and at some point they give up view. The minute execution of details and the clarity of from tiredness?the depicted subjects never give up overall design deepen this impression. Pictorial elements are are their identity. Things do not melt away and become described and their interrelationships shown to is no All these patches of factured brushstroke. It is easy understand with clarity. There indeterminacy. of to come to us into that we why some scholars have likened Persianate paintings aspects together trick the belief can see once. enamel?a hardened medium of bright colors and everything all at is a is in numerous carefully delineated forms. It theme of seeing that illustrated In the first decades of the sixteenth century, artists poetic works, including such subjects as Iskandar as a in were still working within the limits of pictorial peeping at the sirens they sport by lake depicted an conception defined in the illustrated manuscripts of anthology made for Iskandar Sultan in Shiraz in a in a of Baysunghur. In second painting from Shah Tahmasp's 1410, and Farhad before Shirin manuscript we court to ca. Both Shahnama (fig. 9) see King Gayumars and his Khusraw and Shirin, dated 1420.36 subjects x some in a mountain location. The image measures 340 230 share the theme of seeing?the capacity accorded mm. to see and not to be seen. In the of Although the painting results from the participation individuals example of several artists, their individual "hands" have been Iskandar (Alexander) and the sirens it is quite easy to no behind the suppressed to the point that single element of the find Iskandar and his companion lurking as an In the and more painting can be understood expressive of individual rocks. developed heavily populated manner. The mark of the artist has been excised, composition, showing the sculptor Farhad coming us banished from the act of execution. Like the paintings before the princess Shirin, it takes longer to find the no trace witnesses hidden the in Baysunghur's manuscripts, of production, of silent throughout palace. an manufacture, is visible?it is as if the painting came into The theme of seeing, of individual's empowerment of occurs in numerous stories being spontaneously. The composition of multiple through the faculty vision, in Persian literature. And it is the figures and intricate landscape is perfectly designed, yet, running against intervals between elements and the contours of figures equally common theme of the duplicity of vision, of the are trickery of images: the object lesson is that images never as or what they appear to be despite their 34. Qazi Mir Ahmad, Gulistan-i hunar, trans. V. Minorsky, A Son of Mir claims. the formal of the Calligraphers and Painters: Treatise by Qadi Ahmad, apparent Curiously, language understood as Munshi (ca. a.h. 1015/a.d. 1606), Freer Gallery of Art Occasional Persianate painting might be combining 2 D.C.: Freer of Smithsonian a Papers 3, (Washington, Gallery Art, these two opposite conclusions. First there is mirage of 64. Institution, 1959), p. clarity, of feeling that one can know and come to 35. In his observations about the Persianate painting, Robinson notes the perfection of execution, following Schroeder, but emphasizes was as a means the 36. For see Basil Persian that perfectionism desired of securing story's illustrations, Gray, Painting (Geneva: note 54 and 76. legibility and comprehension (see 6, p. 13). Skira, 1961), pp.

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" " ' " ' ? 5- J.V'.W,,i-V->-^.V*'.0 '.-:..-"---? 'v-'r-V^J'v>v:.rv-: ^'"." :\-v.-"-*;-:-?---V r. Figure 9. The court of Gayumars. Manuscript painting from the Shahnama-yi Shahi made for x Shah Tahmasp, Tabriz, ca. 1522-1525, fol. 20b. Opaque pigment and gold on paper, 342 231 mm (painted surface). Geneva, Collection Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan. (Photo: Collection Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan.)

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understand the Persianate painting all at once. It is an intuition fostered by the monoscenic composition? which combines multiple points of perspective that deny nothing to the eye?and the rigorous execution and unifying effect of color distribution. Despite these formal features, the sheer density of information provided in the painting overwhelms the senses and resists being completely understood. This is Persianate painting's "reality effect," one often remarked on by contemporaries and misunderstood by scholars today (it is read as a culturally coded form of resemblance and not as the dialectic of the experience of seeing). Returning to the painting that we thought we had comprehended only turns up more surprises, things left unnoticed, or the inevitable connections that were never made. This is the source of the Persianate painting's power?the right of endless return. We spend time finding elements we had never noticed in previous viewings, imagining stories within stories, deciphering the actions of figures and the responses that their companions will make. Inevitably these last features opened the way to the passage of an time, blocking "all-at-once" comprehension, although the painting seemed to have acquired its existence in no time.

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