Kamāl ud-Dīn Behzād
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Kamāl ud-Dīn Behzād Herawī, also known as Kamal al-din Bihzad or Kamaleddin Behzad (c. 1450 – c. 1535) was a Persian miniaturist and head of the royal ateliers in Herat and Tabriz during the late Timurid and early Safavid periods.
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[edit] Career and style
Behzad is the most famous of Persian miniature painters, though he is more accurately understood as the director of a workshop (or kitabkhāna) producing manuscript illuminations in a style he conceived.[1][2][3] This style is highly geometric in design, and utilises Sufi symbolism and symbolic colour to convey meaning. Behzad also introduced greater naturalism to some elements of Persian painting, particularly in the depiction of more individualised figures and the use of realistic gestures and expressions.
Behzad's most famous works include "The Seduction of Yusuf" from Sa'di's Bustan of 1488, and paintings from the British Library's Nizami manuscript of 1494-95 - particularly scenes from Layla and Majnun and the Haft Paykar (see accompanying image). The attribution of specific paintings to Behzad himself is often problematic (and, many academics would now argue, unimportant),[1] but the majority of works commonly attributed to him date from 1488 to 1495.
He is also mentioned in Orhan Pamuk's Famous novel " My Name is Red" as one of the greatest Persian miniature painters. In Pamuk's novel it is said that Kamal al-Din Behzad blinded himself with a needle.
[edit] Biography
Behzad lived and worked in Herat (in present day Afghanistan) under the Timurids, and later in Tabriz under the Safavid dynasty. An orphan, he was raised by the prominent painter Mirak Naqqash, and was a protege of Mir Ali Shir Nava'i. His major patrons in Herat were the Timurid sultan Husayn Bayqarah (ruled 1469 - 1506) and other amirs in his circle. After the fall of the Timurids, he was employed by Shah Ismail I Safavi in Tabriz, where, as director of the royal atelier, he had a decisive impact on the development of later Safavid painting.
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b Roxburgh, David J., “Kamal al-Din Bihzad and Authorship in Persianate Painting,” Muqarnas, Vol. XVII, 2000, pp. 119-146.
- ^ Lentz, Thomas, “Changing Worlds: Bihzad and the New Painting,” Persian Masters: Five Centuries of Painting, ed., Sheila R. Canby, Bombay, 1990, pp. 39–54.
- ^ Lentz, Thomas, and Lowry, Glenn D., Timur and the Princely Vision, Los Angeles, 1989.
[edit] References
- Brend, Barbara, Islamic Art, London, 1991.
- Chapman, Sarah, “Mathematics and Meaning in the Structure and Composition of Timurid Miniature Painting”, Persica, Vol. XIX, 2003, pp. 33-68.
- Gray, Basil, Persian Painting, London, 1977.
- Hillenbrand, Robert, Islamic Art and Architecture, London, 1999.
- Lentz, Thomas, and Lowry, Glenn D., Timur and the Princely Vision, Los Angeles, 1989.
- Lentz, Thomas, “Changing Worlds: Bihzad and the New Painting,” Persian Masters: Five Centuries of Painting, ed., Sheila R. Canby, Bombay, 1990, pp. 39–54.
- Milstein, Rachel, “Sufi Elements in Late Fifteenth Century Herat Painting”, Studies in Memory of Gaston Wiet, ed., M. Rosen-Ayalon, Jerusalem, 1977, pp. 357-70.
- Rice, David Talbot, Islamic Art, 2nd ed., London, 1975.
- Rice, David Talbot, Islamic Painting: a Survey, Edinburgh, 1971.
- Robinson, Basil W., Fifteenth Century Persian Painting: Problems and Issues, New York, 1991.
- Roxburgh, David J., “Kamal al-Din Bihzad and Authorship in Persianate Painting,” Muqarnas, Vol. XVII, 2000, pp. 119-146.
[edit] See Also
