Visual Language of Safavid and Ottoman Ceremonies and Feasts Depictions in the 16th-Century Miniature Painting: Reformulating Proportions between Figures and Architecture
| Authors | |
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| Year of publication | 2014 |
| Type | Article in Proceedings |
| Conference | Art History Studies: Art & Society |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Field | Art, architecture, cultural heritage |
| Keywords | Islamic miniature painting; Ottoman miniature painting; Safavid miniature painting; depiction of ceremony; depiction of feast |
| Description | With respect to illustrations of ceremonies and feasts in the Safavid and Ottoman traditions, the theme includes particular features - especially the accentuation of the ruler, which within the actual event results from the presence of attending onlookers, these reflecting both the representation of a royal subject and the performance of ceremony. Even though this basic feature is shared by Safavid and autonomous Ottoman painting, the visual language of each relates to a distinct treatment of the theme. The Safavid painters follow the Persian miniature tradition accentuating architectural structures without any radical adaptation of the visual language to the particulars of theme. The accentuation of figures seems to be in contraposition to the traditional dominance of architecture, which establishes an adjacent ornamental structure within the painting. The Ottomans, on the other hand, apply an autonomous approach, consisting in the reformulation of traditional proportions between the architecture and figures within the depiction. The paper compares the visual language of the depictions of ceremonies and feasts in 16th-century Safavid and Ottoman miniature painting with respect to the shift in proportions between architecture and figures within the scope of the miniature. It also provides an exemplification of the transition from Persian visual language to the autonomous Ottoman approach when rendering the same theme. |
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