Semester:
Offered:
David Roxburgh
Tuesdays, 12:00 pm - 2:45 pm
This seminar is focused on the reading and critical study of primary written sources about art in Persian and English translation from the 15th through 17th centuries focused on Persianate culture. Secondary sources in Persian and European languages are also considered for their approaches and methods to the examination of written sources.
The written sources are arranged chronologically and span several genres including the petition (Arzadasht), the calligrapher’s treatise (Simi Nishapuri, Sultan Ali Mashhadi, and Baba Shah Isfahani), the artist’s treatise (Sadiqi Beg), the travel narrative (Ghiyath al-Din Naqqash and Abd al-Razzaq Samarqandi), the album preface (Dust Muhammad), biographies of poets (Dawlatshah Samarqandi and Sam Mirza), biographies of artists and calligraphers (Qazi Ahmad and Mustafa Ali), and the memoir (Jahangir). Study of these sources will attend as much to their form, language, genre, literary history, and authorship as to their content and value for art history.