leg in the hand of the demon : The vernacular origin of the subtleties of Rostam 7 th Khan's painting in two copies of the Shahnameh in the Herat school

Volume 1, Issue 1 - Serial Number 1
March 2026
Pages 146-167

Document Type : Original Article

Author

post doctoral researcher. Department of Persian language and literature. Literature and humanities faculty. Kharazmi university. Tehran. IRAN.

Abstract
The details of illustrations in illustrated manuscripts are influenced by various factors and are not only limited to Ferdowsi's narration of the story. Painters were considered to be educated artists who used other factors to make the drawing more attractive in addition to the main narration of the story. The painters who were engaged in drawing pictures for the commissioned copies of the court, although they drew these pictures for the king and kept the copy in the royal library, were influenced by popular literature in the details of some of the pictures. The points hidden in the subtleties of the illustrated manuscripts can be rooted in some popular attitudes to the stories of the Shahnameh, including the narratives of the Naqali scrolls. Two versions of the Herat school can be mentioned among the examples of this illustrated version that were influenced by the heritage of popular literature, especially the Naqali scrolls. These two versions are the versions of Baysonqori and Mohammad Jouki. In these two works, which are related to each other in terms of time, the painting of the killing of the white demon in Rostam's 7th Khan is one of the most famous paintings. In this painting, some details show the artist's influence from popular literature. In this article, considering one of the subtleties of this painting in the two mentioned versions, we have addressed the issue of the influence of the painter on the narrative of a scroll.

Keywords

Subjects
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