Arts of the Book

One of the important styles of art in Islamic art is calligraphy and the arts of the book. Because of the importance of the Quran and the written word in Islam, writing, calligraphy, and the arts of the book assume a significant importance in Islamic culture, much more so than in most parts of Western Europe. This is really beneficial because it means that the Islamic world often acted as a repository of written knowledge. Many books from the classical world, the Greek and Roman world, that were lost in the West were preserved in the Islamic empires. But it also means that there's a significant Islamic tradition of writing and calligraphy. Obviously the Quran is among the most important books in the Islamic world, but there are other important forms of writing as well. This is the Tughra or the insignia of the Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, and this kind of an insignia was like a royal seal. Different versions of this would be applied to any official documents coming out of the royal palace and the royal courts, and these could range from a much simpler version of this that would be applied to more common documents and more workaday documents to these kinds of highly elaborate, highly decorated images like we see here that would be applied to very important or ceremonial documents. Each sultan would have a new Tughra created when he became the sultan that incorporated his name and later on his titles, and we can see some of the elements listed in the line drawing in the top left corner. Each Tughra would have the three vertical lines with a kind of s-shape or swoop shaped element that comes down and crosses them. There's the two large loops on the left hand side, a written element on the bottom, the ser, and then these two long tails on the right hand side. According to tradition, each of these elements has a symbolic meaning. For instance, the bays of these two loops on the left hand side are thought to represent the territory controlled by the Muslim sultans between the Black and Caspian seas, but some art historians do think that these symbolic meanings were added later and that these forms develop out of the elaborate calligraphy of earlier Islamic traditions. The written portions in the ser, and then in this case underneath the bays, would include the name of the sultan, his lineage or his descendants, so the name of his father at the time, and then often his positions or titles as well. Other Islamic documents mixed pictures and words. This picture is what we call an Indian miniature painting, and when we say miniature in this case, we mean that it's about the size of a sheet of notebook paper or slightly larger, and the word miniature in this case denotes the fact that this is meant to be held in the hands or bound in a book rather than hung on the wall. This particular miniature comes out of the Mughal dynasty in northern India, the same dynasty that created the Taj Mahal, and the Mughal dynasty mixed native Indian traditions with Persian artistic influences. So we can see at the top and the bottom of this painting a written inscription, but most of the story here is being told in the visual images. What's happening in this particular story is described in the title, so Jahangir is the king of the Mughal dynasty, he's the Mughal emperor, and he's preferring a Sufi shakya to kings. Sufism is a sect of Islam, and the word shakya means a holy man. So we see that the man with the long white beard on the left hand side is the Sufi shakya, he's a Sufi holy man, and the two figures immediately below him represent worldly kings. The man in the white turban with the black beard is a representation of the Persian sultans. Art historians generally think that this is not meant to be a specific individual portrait, but rather a general representation of the Mughal connection with the Persian kingdoms. And below that we do have a specific portrait, this is James I of England and Scotland. King James was interested in trade with India. The first British East India Company is actually founded right around the year 1600, and this portrait could have been copied, and likely was copied, from either trade or missionary materials that had made their way to India. In the bottom left hand corner we see a representation of the artist, and here is where we see this interesting mixing of Indian traditions with imported Islamic traditions. We can see by looking at the artist that he is probably a Hindu, however, he signs his name to this painting, which is unusual. Hindu artists rarely sign their names, they're considered craftsmen rather than fine artists, where that name of the artist might have a significance and lend prestige to the painting. Yet despite that he has signed his name, we can see his identity here. We also see him holding a miniature painting within a painting, and that painting shows gifts he has received from the emperor, so it's showing him as a high status individual.