The Making of the Artist in Late Timurid Painting (Edinburgh Studies in Islamic Art)

This book constitutes the first exploration of artistic self-reflection in Islamic art. In the absence of a tradition of self-portraiture, how could artists signal their presence within a painting? Centred on late Timurid manuscript painting (ca. 1470-1500), this book reveals that pictures could function as the painter’s delegate, charged with the task of centring and defining artistic work, even as they did not represent the artist’s likeness. Influenced by the culture of the majlis, an institutional gathering devoted to intricate literary performances and debates, late Timurid painters used a number of strategies to shift manuscript painting from an illustrative device to a self-reflective object, designed to highlight the artist’s imagination and manual dexterity. These strategies include visual abundance, linear precision, the incorporation of inscriptions addressing aspects of the painting and the artist’s signature. Focusing on one of the most iconic manuscripts of the Persianate tradition, the Cairo Bustan made in late Timurid Herat and bearing the signatures of the painter Bihzad, this book explores Persian manuscript painting as a medium for artistic performance and self-representation, a process by which artistic authority was shaped and discussed. In addition, each chapter explores a different theme: how painters challenged the conventions of royal representation (chapter 1); the role of writing in painting, its relation to ekphrasis and the context of the majlis (chapter 2); image, mimesis and potential world (Chapter 3); the line and its calligraphic quality (Chapter 4); signature (Chapter 5); the mobility of manuscripts (epilogue). The first exploration of how artists represented artistic work and authorship in Persian paintingIn the absence of a tradition of self-portraiture, how could artists signal their presence within a painting? Centred on late Timurid manuscript painting (ca. 1470-1500), this book reveals that pictures could function as the painter's delegate, charged with the task of centring and defining artistic work, even as they did not represent the artist's likeness. Influenced by the culture of the majlis, an institutional gathering devoted to intricate literary performances and debates, late Timurid painters used a number of strategies to shift manuscript painting from an illustrative device to a self-reflective object, designed to highlight the artist's imagination and manual dexterity. These strategies include visual abundance, linear precision, the incorporation of inscriptions addressing aspects of the painting and the artist's signature. Focusing on one of the most iconic manuscripts of the Persianate tradition, the Cairo Bustan made in late Timurid Herat and bearing the signatures of the painter Bihzad, this book explores Persian manuscript painting as a medium for artistic performance and self-representation, a process by which artistic authority was shaped and discussed.Key FeaturesThe first book-length study of artistic self-reflection in Islamic artExpands artistic self-representation beyond self-portraiture to consider how the artist could be represented through the symbolic possibilities of the mediumExplores the relationship between Persian painting, historical modes of visual experience at the majlis and conceptions of authorship in art historiographical writingsExamines a series of hitherto unstudied features of Persian painting, including the representation of epigraphic inscriptions and the painter's signatureProvides the first complete analysis of one of the most important manuscripts in the history of Persianate book arts, the Cairo Bustan.. "In the absence of a tradition of self-portraiture, how could artists signal their presence within a painting? Centred on late Timurid manuscript painting (ca. 1470-1500), this book reveals that pictures could function as the painter's delegate, charged with the task of centring and defining artistic work, even as they did not represent the artist's likeness. Influenced by the culture of the majlis, an institutional gathering devoted to intricate literary performances and debates, late Timurid painters used a number of strategies to shift manuscript painting from an illustrative device to a self-reflective object, designed to highlight the artist's imagination and manual dexterity. These strategies include visual abundance, linear precision, the incorporation of inscriptions addressing aspects of the painting and the artist's signature. Focusing on one of the most iconic manuscripts of the Persianate tradition, the Cairo Bustan, made in late Timurid Herat and bearing the signatures of the painter Bihzad, this book argues that Bihzad's paintings defined authorship as making: at once an imaginative process and a manual endeavour."--Jacket Title Page Copyright Contents Figures Plates Acknowledgements Series Editor’s Foreword introduction - Painting about Painting Plates 1 Pictorial Preface 2 Writing on the Image 3 Potential World 4 Calligraphic Line 5 Wondrous Signature Epilogue - Manuscripts in Motion Bibliography Illustration Acknowledgements Index Centred on late Timurid manuscript painting (ca. 1470-1500), this text reveals that pictures could function as the painter's delegate, charged with the task of centring and defining artistic work, even as they did not represent the artist's likeness