1 00:00:08,310 --> 00:00:14,970 In case there were any connectivity issues, the title of my talk is The Future of the Past Poetry, 2 00:00:14,970 --> 00:00:23,870 Portraiture and the Reception of Antiquity in a Tumour. And I'm going to be talking about the home of the brave time. 3 00:00:23,870 --> 00:00:36,940 But before I start, I also want to acknowledge that I'm speaking from the see the land of the radical people of your urination in Sydney, Australia. 4 00:00:36,940 --> 00:00:44,830 The content of this renowned book is a history decayed by the passage of time. 5 00:00:44,830 --> 00:00:52,370 Ferdowsi has adorned a pleasant body, yet no life is contained in it. 6 00:00:52,370 --> 00:01:00,800 It might seem out of place, but these verses, which describe the Shahnameh as an out of date, lifeless text, 7 00:01:00,800 --> 00:01:11,340 appear in the middle of one of the most well-known 15th century copies of Ferdowsi's poem, the Shahnameh of Ibrahim Sultan. 8 00:01:11,340 --> 00:01:18,210 This tension, this question is what led me to Oxford in twenty nineteen as about half a visiting fellow. 9 00:01:18,210 --> 00:01:21,960 Many experts have written on the short term of our brain still time before. 10 00:01:21,960 --> 00:01:27,750 So I hope that I can do their work justice in this short presentation. 11 00:01:27,750 --> 00:01:32,550 But I'm concerned within this talk or some of the paintings from this manuscript and 12 00:01:32,550 --> 00:01:38,280 a little studied accompanying poem that is not part of the text of the Shahnameh, 13 00:01:38,280 --> 00:01:44,400 but was written for inclusion in the manuscript in the workshop of Ibrahim Sultan, 14 00:01:44,400 --> 00:01:52,650 the Tamary prince, who between 14, 15 and 14 thirty five was the governor of Shiraz. 15 00:01:52,650 --> 00:02:01,260 These paintings and the accompanying poem allow us to ask a range of questions from the reception of the Shahnameh as a work of 16 00:02:01,260 --> 00:02:12,270 literature dealing with the ancient past to the meaning of portraiture and its correlation with historical self-awareness at the time. 17 00:02:12,270 --> 00:02:18,720 Before I get to these questions, I'm going to walk you through the manuscript for a quick overview. 18 00:02:18,720 --> 00:02:30,420 The Shahnameh of Ibrahim Sultan is not dated and lacks a colour phone, but the patient's name is recorded in several instances inside the manuscript. 19 00:02:30,420 --> 00:02:34,440 We know that at some point in its after life, it travelled to India, 20 00:02:34,440 --> 00:02:42,690 the likely place it was acquired by a cigarette ouseley and was later purchased by the Bodleian Library in eighteen fifty eight. 21 00:02:42,690 --> 00:02:49,590 In nineteen fifty two, its illustrations and illuminations were removed and mounted in between glass sheets, 22 00:02:49,590 --> 00:02:54,240 a fact that makes working with this manuscript as a whole very complicated. 23 00:02:54,240 --> 00:02:58,980 So I'm incredibly grateful to colleagues at the podium who made this work possible. 24 00:02:58,980 --> 00:03:06,600 I should also mention that the manuscript is fully digitised and accessible through the body and website. 25 00:03:06,600 --> 00:03:11,760 So behind this cover, the manuscript opens its three double page. 26 00:03:11,760 --> 00:03:14,190 Frontispiece is well, 27 00:03:14,190 --> 00:03:24,720 these frontispiece have been heavily repainted and there are unanswered questions about the drawings on the reverse of these folios. 28 00:03:24,720 --> 00:03:29,850 The double page illustrations have been hypothesised by several scholars as 29 00:03:29,850 --> 00:03:37,230 patron portraits showing Ibrahim Sultan Erdan reception and enthronement scene, 30 00:03:37,230 --> 00:03:46,300 as well as a haunting scene. And here you see the drawings on the back and a battle. 31 00:03:46,300 --> 00:03:54,070 Then comes a process professor likely dated Lecky added post 16th century, 32 00:03:54,070 --> 00:04:03,010 followed by the dedication Chamsai or Sunburst motif, which bears the name and titles of Ibrahim Sultan. 33 00:04:03,010 --> 00:04:11,880 Another professor, the Abu Mansouri one, starts on the back of it with an illuminated heading. 34 00:04:11,880 --> 00:04:18,660 A double page illuminated frontispiece marks the end of the process and contains again 35 00:04:18,660 --> 00:04:23,700 titles of Ibrahim Sultan as well as the signature of the illuminator Nazareth's. 36 00:04:23,700 --> 00:04:29,700 And that's just what I Tommy, who was the head of Ibrahim Sauternes Ottilia. 37 00:04:29,700 --> 00:04:37,410 These are followed by another illuminator double page framing the opening verses of the text proper. 38 00:04:37,410 --> 00:04:45,810 There are 42 paintings that illustrate the text of the Shahnameh and only two of them are full page in the 39 00:04:45,810 --> 00:04:54,300 middle of the manuscript right before the section on the coronation of Lacross four pages of verses which, 40 00:04:54,300 --> 00:05:04,650 as I mentioned, are not part of the shop I opened my presentation with and a double page illustration interrupt the text proper. 41 00:05:04,650 --> 00:05:14,260 The painting shows Ibrahim Soltan holding court and the queen and her attendants watching a gardener at work on the other side. 42 00:05:14,260 --> 00:05:20,070 So let me tell you a little bit about this accompanying poem. 43 00:05:20,070 --> 00:05:29,010 The Maslova, this poem is a Maslova and is a panegyric in one hundred fifty seven verses on Ibrahim Zoltán, 44 00:05:29,010 --> 00:05:41,430 written by 015 Ali as the historian when Shehab Ibrahim Sultan and the author of The Zeferino, or Book of Victories on the Life of Tadmore, 45 00:05:41,430 --> 00:05:49,230 the poem starts with Praise of God and the Prophet Muhammad, followed by praise of Ferdowsi and his Sharhan imam, 46 00:05:49,230 --> 00:05:54,330 then a section reflecting on the poem itself and the purpose of its composition, 47 00:05:54,330 --> 00:06:01,350 leading to the longer section of the poem, which is concerned with the praise of Ibrahim Sultan. 48 00:06:01,350 --> 00:06:07,950 The juxtaposition of the poem and this double page painting has helped the scholars to confirm earlier 49 00:06:07,950 --> 00:06:15,960 hypotheses about this and other double page illustrations in this manuscript being Patrón Portraits. 50 00:06:15,960 --> 00:06:21,930 But apart from the identification of the paintings protagonist as Ibrahim Sultan, 51 00:06:21,930 --> 00:06:30,000 I want to explore what else the poem and paintings do as a coherent set. 52 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:35,130 The poem and a double page painting are inherently related to one another. 53 00:06:35,130 --> 00:06:43,110 The verses of the poem are literally woven into the fabric of the painting so that the final lines of 54 00:06:43,110 --> 00:06:54,180 the poem end on a panel running into the painting aligned with the enthroned ruler on the right side. 55 00:06:54,180 --> 00:07:06,600 This text box is distinct from the floating text blocks in other paintings of this manuscript, not only from its positioning in the architecture, 56 00:07:06,600 --> 00:07:15,960 but also the fact that instead of the words in black ink being written on the normal surface of the paper here on the panel and the right, 57 00:07:15,960 --> 00:07:25,230 they're written against a painted surface similar to the white plaster covering the rest of the world around it. 58 00:07:25,230 --> 00:07:33,960 These subtle details leave the viewer in no doubt that the calligraphic panel is part of the pain to the space, 59 00:07:33,960 --> 00:07:41,870 that it belongs to the same spatial and temporal plane as the painting and the king. 60 00:07:41,870 --> 00:07:50,240 Then read closely the poems, Praise of Abraham so often engages with several of the themes depicted in the paintings, 61 00:07:50,240 --> 00:07:56,030 not just a double page painting that is directly juxtaposed vivid, 62 00:07:56,030 --> 00:08:01,950 but also the three double page Frontispiece says in the beginning of the manuscript. 63 00:08:01,950 --> 00:08:11,760 For instance, the poem praises the king's prowess in battle, noting his capacity to confront the heroes of the Shahnameh, 64 00:08:11,760 --> 00:08:22,380 the resistance, the accuracy of this and the others, a similar metaphor is extended to his hunting skills. 65 00:08:22,380 --> 00:08:26,730 Many of the king's attributes, such as his sword, 66 00:08:26,730 --> 00:08:36,690 his helmet and his horse are invoked as allegories of his battle skills, but also his mental prowess and intellect. 67 00:08:36,690 --> 00:08:41,640 And then an analogy between Ibrahim Sultan and the Cyprus, 68 00:08:41,640 --> 00:08:49,560 a common symbol of the relationship between prosperity and it just through brings us to the garden side of the painting. 69 00:08:49,560 --> 00:09:03,400 In the middle of the manuscript, the king is compared to a sapling under whose shadow justice grows in the garden of his kingship. 70 00:09:03,400 --> 00:09:13,270 All the sultans are at his service rulers of regions near and far east and west coming to see him. 71 00:09:13,270 --> 00:09:19,780 It is not that the poem is simply describing the paintings one after another. 72 00:09:19,780 --> 00:09:28,360 Rather, it is taking visual cues from the paintings as it moves swiftly from one theme to the next, 73 00:09:28,360 --> 00:09:38,540 turning those cues into metaphors that draw us a picture of Ibrahim and his virtues as an ideal king. 74 00:09:38,540 --> 00:09:47,180 And as it does so, the poem touches on all of the archetypal Patrón from is the battle, the hunt, 75 00:09:47,180 --> 00:09:52,820 the garden reception and the indoor Majelis or enthronement theme is that there 76 00:09:52,820 --> 00:10:01,270 by Denn well-established iconography for Frontispiece portraits in the period. 77 00:10:01,270 --> 00:10:06,920 The paintings, in the sense, act like a stage setting for the poem. 78 00:10:06,920 --> 00:10:15,690 In its use of visual clues as a literary devices, the poem has an acrostic quality. 79 00:10:15,690 --> 00:10:23,160 The double page painting of Palace and Garden epitomises this relationship towards the end of the poem, 80 00:10:23,160 --> 00:10:29,220 after a hundred verses praising the qualities of the king, the poet announces a shift. 81 00:10:29,220 --> 00:10:33,930 He says It's better for me to stay away from the king's combat and turn my 82 00:10:33,930 --> 00:10:41,460 attention to his base because his reception is a universe of pomp and power. 83 00:10:41,460 --> 00:10:51,150 The Majlis of the King is then described with a flood of allegories, benevolence is the cupper of the muchness generosity. 84 00:10:51,150 --> 00:10:59,000 Is it Silverline, Felicity, its musician, happiness, its song, and so on and so forth. 85 00:10:59,000 --> 00:11:09,060 The poem becomes like an allegorical painting. So what ultimately is the painting poems so doing in this manuscript, 86 00:11:09,060 --> 00:11:16,630 the intended purpose of the set is explained in a short introduction that survives of spirit outside the home of Abraham. 87 00:11:16,630 --> 00:11:27,290 So time and in the moonshot of Any Day, which is a compilation of letters, short text and poems from the 15th century. 88 00:11:27,290 --> 00:11:35,990 This short introduction, not a decree from Ibrahim Sultan saying that a painting depicting his exalted Majlis 89 00:11:35,990 --> 00:11:41,810 should go into the middle of some of the newly written copies of the Shahnameh. 90 00:11:41,810 --> 00:11:50,280 And these verses, which would follow this introduction, were composed for the back of the painting. 91 00:11:50,280 --> 00:11:55,350 There are several details in this short introduction that are worth noting, for instance, 92 00:11:55,350 --> 00:12:05,460 the fact that the painting and the poem were meant to be inserted exactly in the middle of the manuscript and that this was not a one off unique case, 93 00:12:05,460 --> 00:12:11,220 but was seen as a part of the broader project for Abraham Sultan's workshop. 94 00:12:11,220 --> 00:12:12,510 More importantly, 95 00:12:12,510 --> 00:12:22,620 the relationship between the poem and the painting here flips the notion of the primacy of text over image in an illustrated manuscript. 96 00:12:22,620 --> 00:12:30,060 One of the purposes of the image is to narrate this story in the text image set that is sent here. 97 00:12:30,060 --> 00:12:33,000 The image seems to have been the focus. 98 00:12:33,000 --> 00:12:46,210 It comes first in the process of making, and the poem is written for its back in a very similar to the nature of epigraphy commission for objects. 99 00:12:46,210 --> 00:12:53,200 This short introduction, however, does not fully explain what the text image set was devised for dad. 100 00:12:53,200 --> 00:12:55,270 I will return to the poem itself, 101 00:12:55,270 --> 00:13:06,080 specifically the first part of the poem where we find a reflection on the purpose of its composition and by extension, that of the painting. 102 00:13:06,080 --> 00:13:09,350 After praising Ferdowsi and his magnum opus, 103 00:13:09,350 --> 00:13:20,600 the poet laments that the economist suffers from archaism as a text devoted only to what once was and what once happened, 104 00:13:20,600 --> 00:13:26,210 it's versus weirded out by the passage of time. 105 00:13:26,210 --> 00:13:35,750 The poem personifies the Shahnameh as a lifeless body to insert life into it, the poet identifies the middle of the book, 106 00:13:35,750 --> 00:13:44,630 its heart as the appropriate place for interpretation because the heart is home to the soul and the 107 00:13:44,630 --> 00:13:51,110 soul that was to be inserted right in the middle of this lifeless body was the portrait of the prince. 108 00:13:51,110 --> 00:13:58,730 The physical location of the portrait was inherent to its meaning and its efficacy. 109 00:13:58,730 --> 00:14:07,850 Scholars in the past have noted the difference in the style of the paintings compared with the text illustrations in this manuscript, 110 00:14:07,850 --> 00:14:12,260 the text illustrations are ones like the text. 111 00:14:12,260 --> 00:14:22,210 Illustrations typically feature a few large figures against a simple background in the lack of surface details. 112 00:14:22,210 --> 00:14:34,480 As you may note on the screen, this dramatic, minimalist effect is contrasted by the double page paintings with a more lyrical style connected 113 00:14:34,480 --> 00:14:42,200 to both the Julia Reed and Herot paintings from the workshop of Ibrahim's brother by Songer. 114 00:14:42,200 --> 00:14:46,700 A similar duality has been noted in this style of the manuscript's illuminations, 115 00:14:46,700 --> 00:14:54,740 although the juxtaposition of different illumination styles in one manuscript was not uncommon in Shiraz at the time, 116 00:14:54,740 --> 00:15:02,300 those before the start of the text proper that you see on top are connected with this style of Herat illumination of the time. 117 00:15:02,300 --> 00:15:07,970 But those at the beginning of the alimentary process and the inserted poem by Ali as 118 00:15:07,970 --> 00:15:13,250 D that you see at the bottom are connected to the muzaffer red and blue and gold. 119 00:15:13,250 --> 00:15:22,160 She writes a style. This duality has been explained in terms of centre periphery politics, in other words, 120 00:15:22,160 --> 00:15:28,340 the competitive relationship between Herat and Shiraz and the respective workshops, 121 00:15:28,340 --> 00:15:33,380 as well as the mobility of artists moving between these two regions. 122 00:15:33,380 --> 00:15:37,040 But some of these arguments still hold. 123 00:15:37,040 --> 00:15:46,580 They don't fully explain the seemingly intentional juxtaposition of the styles in this manuscript, especially with regard to the illustrations. 124 00:15:46,580 --> 00:15:54,960 Looking at the double page paintings together with the poem as a set, can shed some light on this duality. 125 00:15:54,960 --> 00:16:00,300 The logic of Ibrahim Sauterne Charlemagne's intervention, as explained by the poem, 126 00:16:00,300 --> 00:16:06,600 lies in the perception of history and its acknowledgement of temporal distance, 127 00:16:06,600 --> 00:16:17,550 a fact that becomes especially prominent against the backdrop of the rise of tumed historiography in the viewpoint that the poem presents 128 00:16:17,550 --> 00:16:26,940 us with a work of art as great as the Sharhan on that was is still a work of ancient past or distant past and needed to be revived, 129 00:16:26,940 --> 00:16:32,760 had to be made contemporary. This was not a critique of the Shahnameh itself, 130 00:16:32,760 --> 00:16:39,270 but what it had become as a result of historical dist. adopting textual and 131 00:16:39,270 --> 00:16:45,240 visual strategies that were used to make the Shahnameh contemporary Rennard new. 132 00:16:45,240 --> 00:16:52,320 Several prefaces were written on the topic and the text itself was edited or extended. 133 00:16:52,320 --> 00:16:56,970 Its illustrations were filled with contemporary sources of inspiration. 134 00:16:56,970 --> 00:17:04,950 And as a scholars have shown, there are several instances in which depictions of the Shahnameh as great kings and heroes, 135 00:17:04,950 --> 00:17:12,740 conflated these characters with suggestive representations of contemporary ruling authorities. 136 00:17:12,740 --> 00:17:20,930 But what distinguishes the intervention at hand here is that Ibrahim Sultanzoy Circle is adopting a different 137 00:17:20,930 --> 00:17:30,080 way of describing the king into the lineage of ancient kings and heroes instead of being disguised as them, 138 00:17:30,080 --> 00:17:39,140 the body of the king, or in other words, his portrait interrupts this lineage by virtue of its strategic position, 139 00:17:39,140 --> 00:17:45,410 visual difference and a poem, the theorises that difference. 140 00:17:45,410 --> 00:17:54,980 This interruption reads as a self-conscious reorientation of history to define one's relationship in history and its great works 141 00:17:54,980 --> 00:18:06,410 of art required a visual intervention that bore an explicit mark of distinction from the past and occupied a liminal position, 142 00:18:06,410 --> 00:18:11,580 both internal two and distinct from that history. 143 00:18:11,580 --> 00:18:19,774 Thank you very much.