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The Soas Anv@R-I Suhaylµ: the Journey of a “Reincarnated” Manuscript

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The Soas Anv@R-I Suhaylµ: the Journey of a “Reincarnated” Manuscript the soas anv§r-i suhaylÊ 331 MIKA NATIF THE SOAS ANV@R-I SUHAYLµ: THE JOURNEY OF A “REINCARNATED” MANUSCRIPT Recognized as one of the masterpieces of early Mughal these characteristics pose, I will link this codex to sim- painting, the manuscript of the Anv¸r-i Suhaylº (Lights ilar books that may shed light on it and explain its of Canopus) now in the Library of the School of Ori- peculiarity. Next I will demonstrate the existence of ental and African Studies (SOAS) is the focal point of two different styles in the paintings, identify the ori- this essay.1 The great beauty, elegance, and style of its gin of these styles, and establish a new chronology and twenty-seven illustrations have attracted the attention history for the manuscript as a whole. Ultimately, I will of many scholars of Islamic art. Reputed to embody discuss these ideas in the broader context of the art the fusion of Persianate style with local indigenous of the book and consider their implications for our Indic motifs, all twenty-seven paintings are dated by understanding of early-Akbar-period painting. art historians, in accordance with the manuscript’s The stories of the Anv¸r-i Suhaylº were written by colophon, to 978 (1570).2 A careful inspection of the Kamal al-Din Husayn ibn Ali al-Va}iz, known also as SOAS paintings, however, yields a somewhat different Kashifi , by the end of the fi fteenth or early sixteenth chronology for the manuscript and its illustrations and century, probably in Timurid Herat.4 The work itself is by extension forces us to reevaluate the conventional dedicated to Amir Suhayli (hence its title), who com- narrative of early-Akbar-period painting. These minia- missioned Kashifi to rewrite, in up-to-date language, tures also invite a reassessment of the history not only the stories of Kalºla wa Dimna.5 These fables, involv- of this book but also, more generally, of illustrated ing humans and animals, often have surprising and manuscripts in sixteenth-century Central Asia, Iran, somewhat harsh conclusions and morals.6 In this essay and Mughal India; they carry broad implications with I will not deal with the content of these stories, as fas- respect to style, aesthetic criteria, cultural geography, cinating as they are, or with their transformation into and the importance of the hand-written word—i.e., images, but rather will examine the physicality of the the conscious preference for hand-copied, rather than book and the style and layout of the paintings, which printed, manuscripts. will serve as a key for understanding this manuscript Scrutinizing paintings for small optical units and and the early period of Mughal painting.7 engaging in a detailed study of each element in every Scholars have tended to approach the twenty-seven painting constitutes the core of the methodology miniature paintings in the SOAS Anv¸r-i Suhaylº as a that I have been developing and practicing together homogeneous group and to classify them as still retain- with Oleg Grabar since our fi rst joint project.3 The ing strong Persian characteristics with respect to their underlying theory holds that nothing in a painting style, composition, and palette. Such a categorization is redundant or accidental; its presence is the result conforms only superfi cially with the master narrative of conscious decisions made by the artist or artists. regarding the birth of Mughal painting, according to A meticulous identifi cation and understanding of which this art was developed under the close guidance the functionality of all visual features in any illustra- and supervision of two Safavid painters, Mir Sayyid {Ali tion will reveal the processes by which artists formu- and {Abd al-Samad, who were brought to the Mughal lated specifi c approaches to their work. This method court by Humayun, and to whom the establishment allows us to reconstruct a history for illustrated man- of the Mughal atelier is credited. uscripts, and the present essay is a further step in this A closer analysis of the manuscript’s illustrations reconstruction. reveals that two of the twenty-seven paintings (folios After presenting the SOAS Anv¸r-i Suhaylº, its dis- 28a and 40a, fi gs. 1 and 2) were painted in a style dif- tinctive and unusual characteristics, and the questions ferent from that of the rest of the illustrations and thus 332 mika natif Fig. 1. The Young Hawk Steals the Bird from the King’s Hawk, fol. 28a, Anv¸r-i Suhaylº, copied in 1570. School of Oriental and African Studies, ms. no. 10102. (Reproduced with the permission of the SOAS Library) the soas anv§r-i suhaylÊ 333 Fig. 2. The Monkey and the Carpenter, fol. 40a, SOAS Anv¸r-i Suhaylº. (Reproduced with the permission of the SOAS Library) 334 mika natif raise fundamental questions regarding the history of smaller scale, dimensionality is transformed through the manuscript, the date of the paintings, and their the rendering of each stone in several tones or shades artists.8 The unusual layout of the remaining twenty-fi ve of color, giving it the illusion of volume and weight pictures further indicates a change from the original (fi gs. 6 and 7). Depictions of architectural structures design of this codex. Although several scholars have in these paintings further suggest that the artists were noticed the stylistic difference, they have explained it aware of and interested in conveying the illusion of a in terms of a change in fashion and taste dictated by three-dimensional environment, using some kind of Emperor Akbar himself and have portrayed the devel- perspective and foreshortening (fi gs. 8 and 9). opment of style in Akbar’s atelier as a linear progres- The layout of the Mughal-style illustrations points sion, moving from a Persianate style into a unifi ed to an important feature of their production process. Mughal idiom. A careful examination of folio 93v (fi g. 4) reveals the At fi rst glance, the Anv¸r-i Suhaylº paintings appear existence of two frames on a single page. The inner to embody and exemplify this assumed trajectory of frame includes most of the painted surface as well as development and evolution. However, this Darwin- a text panel at the lower section of the page. Even ian approach has prevented scholars from examin- though parts of the right side of this frame are cov- ing the manuscript and its illustrations in a historical ered, having been painted over, its upper right cor- and cultural context that might provide a more reli- ner is clearly visible below the fl ying bird carrying a able explanation for the existence of two different piece of skin. A second, larger, frame encompasses styles of paintings in one manuscript. Furthermore, the entire painted area but excludes the text box.10 the placement of the two odd paintings in the open- Other compositions also extend beyond the outlines ing section of the book suggests that changes occurred of their text panels and make use of them in artful in the process of the making of this manuscript. I will ways (e.g., fi gs. 6 and 8). This is an unusual layout fi rst deal with the unusual features of the “Mughal- for Mughal illustrations dated to the 1570s, and the looking” paintings and only then turn to an expla- SOAS Anv¸r-i Suhaylº paintings stand apart from oth- nation of the two odd paintings at the beginning of ers produced in that early period. the manuscript. Scenes that depict architecture in the manuscript Striking in their peculiar layout, the twenty-fi ve are usually contained within the small frame of the Mughal-style paintings extend beyond the text or image text panel, although three have extensions that go frame and into the margins (see, for example, fi gs. beyond that frame (fi gs. 8–10). In these illustrations, 3 and 14). The manuscript contains no attributions, the text panels are manipulated so as to constitute either contemporary or later, to artists,9 giving pause integral parts of the building and are neither super- to art historians working in the so-called connoisseur- imposed on the page nor blocking parts of the pic- ship tradition, which bestows great importance to the ture (as they do elsewhere—e.g., in fi g. 7). When this practice of linking artists with specifi c paintings. feature is compared with illustrated pages from a con- The Mughal-style illustrations form a stylistically temporary D¸r¸bn¸ma of ca. 1577–80 (now in the Brit- coherent group, and they share several distinctive ish Library, Or. 4615), the text panels of the latter, features. Some of their common characteristics can like those of the B¸burn¸ma and other Mughal man- be seen in the treatment of pictorial space and the uscripts, do not interact with or form an organic part rendering of landscape. There is an attempt to con- of the illustration per se,11 but rather give the impres- vey volume, depth, and three-dimensionality in depic- sion of being superimposed on or even pasted over it tions of architecture as well as in landscape. Instead (which is literally true of some Akbarn¸ma pages). of layering the fl at elements of the composition one With this unusual layout, twenty-two of the twenty- above the other, as in folios 28a and 40a (fi gs. 1 and seven illustrations of the SOAS Anv¸r-i Suhaylº occupy 2), the artists of the Mughal-style paintings created a larger space than the one originally designated for spaces and recessions in which landscape frames the them.
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