Oriental Miniatures
Oriental Miniatures
Volume I, 14th-17th centuries
There has been issued the catalogue «Oriental Miniatures» including a detailed description of 45 manuscripts of the 14th-17th centuries. 1,300 wonderful miniature works that have been created for more than 400 years are being introduced into scientific use for the first time.
The book was prepared by the Institute of Arts Studies of the Academy of Artists of the RU together with the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the RU (ASRU) and the UNESCO Uzbek National Committee in Uzbekistan and published in English. It is known that in the year of 2000 the collection of manuscripts at the Institute of Oriental Studies on UNESCO's initiative was included in the international register eWorld Memory*.
The main section of the catalogue has descriptions to the manuscripts and miniatures.
Commentaries to the miniatures are given in the following order: Arabic figures are followed by the name of the picture, its size and location, then follow the abstract of contents, artistic peculiarities, the theme and artistic style of the miniature. The information is rounded up by the attempt to prescribe the miniatures to one or another school and also by determination of their scientific significance.
At the end of the book there are individual comments to each of 21 miniatures and examples of oriental calligraphy.
On the title page of the «Catalogue» there is a wonderful portrait of Amir Temur created at the end of the 15th century.
The two manuscripts of the 14th century include 47 pictures in total.
Miniature art in the epoch of the Temurids had reached the peak of its development.
The three manuscripts, relating to the 15th century, contain 58 pictures. The miniature art of the 16th century is characterized by the formation of two local trends: Safavid and Central Asian schools of fine arts. These are presented by miniatures to the three works of Alisher Navoi /Inv.№ № 5802, 7463, 2197/ and to the work of Abdurakhman Djami «Yusuf and Zuleykha» /Inv.№ 9597/. The miniatures were painted by Mir Said Ali Tabrizi, prominent representative of tabriz school.
The 14 manuscripts relating to the 16th century include 714 pictures.
The Central Asian /Maveraunnakhr/ school was developing in the 16th-17th centuries and has made a considerable contribution to the arts of oriental miniature.
Refinement of calligraphy and images, a harmony of the style and spirit of the work, unification of man with nature, all these are characteristic of Maveraunnakhr miniature school.
One of the advantages of the new publication is that the number of inaccuracies having committed in previous similar publications was corrected in it. The book as a whole has been printed on a high polygraphic level.
The book is considered the best publication in 2001, and has been accounted on orientalists, historians, art historians and large sections of the public interested in the history of the East.