HISTORY OF PERSIAN MINIATURE

Persia has a long pictorial tradition, ranging from Achaemenid bas-reliefs (sixth to fourth century BC) to murals - largely disappeared - Sasanian palaces (third and seventh century AD). Royal and princely prerogative, this art will naturally be perpetuated in the Islamic, but by taking refuge in an art book protected bans the new religion (development of these explanatory banned Islamic "Persian Painting"). The art book was one of the few modes of expression possible, it does not offering the public eyes. The painting was nevertheless meet another condition, the lack of naturalism, it does not attempt to trace the visible: the characters are devoid of individual models and marked the area is flat and without shadows, laid solid colors ignore the chiaroscuro and can be unreal (trees blue, purple rocks, ...), the composition of scenes does not a dramatic or psychological realism. Moreover, the authors illustrated by the painting are mostly Persian mystical poets whose works (poems, novels versification) is a weaving of symbols to resonances in both initiation, cosmic and metaphysical; every human reality is perceived in its meaning divine , And spiritual initiation. The stories of love, for example, symbolize the complex relationship of the soul to God, and hunting scenes have meaning to both royal heroic and shamanic; Sultan surrounded by his court is an image of spiritual master and his disciples, or the divine kingdom surrounded by her holy young beauties manifest divine qualities, and couples show a bi-unity of the Creator. Like Christian icons, Persian painting is not art for art or aesthetics, its language is a symbolism and a contemplative tone. The painter may give his work a vibration and balance that appropriately reflects a state and spiritual awareness. In this painting Persian akin to a sacred art, including the principles of creation can breathe like a spirituality that transcends the technique of the artist. Persian classical painting took off at the end of the thirteenth century. Diversified schools (Shiraz, Tabriz, Herat, Qazvin, Esfahan, ...) it has received engineering painters, both masters of aesthetics and symbolism: Djoyned (XIV century), Behzad (XV-XVI century) , Soltan Muhammad (sixteenth century) to name a few. Excerpts from "Paint or Persian vision of paradise" by Patrick Ringgenberg