Stlukesguild

In contrast to these, paintings such as The Nightmare of Zahhak...



...clearly reverberate with the influence of Bihzad and the painting school of Herat. The viewer is presented with a geometrically constructed depiction of Zahhak’s palace that is at once an interior and exterior view. There is the most exquisite attention given to details of the setting and the decorative architectural patterns. The most refined element, however, is the artist’s mastery with the human figure. The scene illustrated in the narrative is of that moment at which Zahhak, the evil “snake king” awakes screaming from a dream in which he envisions his own death at the hands of a great hero wielding an ox-headed mace.

Rather than focus upon Zahhak, the artist (quite possibly Bihzad himself) gives all his attention to the reaction of Zahhak’s court. Courtiers in the magnificent royal palace look up in surprise; Guardsmen in the towers glance over the balconies in an effort to discern just what the commotion is all about, while the women of the harem hold their fingers to their lips in a gesture of surprise or whisper to each other as they pass on the stairwells:



Many of the finest paintings of the Shahnameh and later Persian manuscripts of the "classical" period combine elements of both the lush Turkoman manner of Tabriz and the more cultured and urbane style of Bihzadian Herat. The dynamic, fervid, and “Dionysian” approach of Sultan Muhammad, the leading painter of the Turkoman school, was influenced by the balanced, harmonious, and humane school of Herat under the elder Bihzad. In the painting of Zahhak Receiving the Daughters of Jamshid whose Throne he has Usurped, (attributed to Sultan Muhammad)...:



... there is a marvelous merger of the two modes of working. Zahhak, the “snake king” is seen enthroned in the most ornate and luxurious of palaces and surrounded by courtiers and servants. The almost gothic/baroque sensory overload or horror vacuii of the fabulous patterned architectural setting continues into the surrounding landscape where twisting trees bloom and clouds spiral and dance against a gilded sky. The gold itself carries over back into the architecture so that the sophisticated, urbane setting and organic natural surrounding almost become one.

In the Folio representing The Murder of King Mirdas...



...one may discover another marvelous example of the merger of styles. The painting presents the brutal patricide of Mirdas which occurs in a lush garden orchard. Mirdas lies with his back broken in a pit dug by his son, Zahhak while unseen observers peer out from doors and balconies of the palace, suggesting the evil deed did not go unnoticed. Spectators, often women, concealed behind doors and balconies, or peering from behind veils and curtains are suggestive of a sophisticated view of the intrigues of the court and were quite expressive of the influence of Bihzad and the urbane style of Herat.

A similar balance of the organic and the geometric… the landscape wilderness and the sophistication of civilization can be found in the painting of Sam and Zal are Welcomed into Kabul, Where the Latter is to be Betrothed to Rudabe, a Decendant of Zahhak.(Now there's a title!):



In this painting the mounted warriors under Sam and Zal move diagonally across the desert landscape. This diagonal is picked up and reiterated by the rigidly ordered line of figures welcoming them into the city. This rigidity itself restates the strict geometry of the fortified architectural setting. Perhaps the most remarkable detail is to be found in the balcony which juts out from the severe structure of the architecture in profile against the most gestural and organic element of the entire painting: the twisting tree silhouetted against the gilded sky which swirls in an arabesque that immediately draws ones eye to the very place where Zal’s wife-to-be observes the hero’s entrance unnoticed.