An analysis of the images of children in the paintings of the Haft Aurang Jami in the Ferrier Collection, based on the theory of Performationism

Performationism is the theory that a human being is completely preformed in a very small size from the very beginning of conception and only grows in size and physical dimensions from the time of birth until adulthood Today, in neurology, it is used to describe the map of sensory neurons in each part of the body (somatosensory homunculus) in the brain. For many centuries, scientists believed that the performationism, which means a small, fully formed human, is present in a man's sperm and then takes place in a ovum during fertilization and grows only in size and quality until adulthood. Based on this view that dominates the intellectual atmosphere of that time during the Middle Ages, children were considered as small adults. In the middle Ages, it was believed that a child was the same as an adult with smaller organs and less physical strength, in other words, a child was considered a small version of an adult. In those days, as soon as a child could live without the constant help and care of his mother, he belonged to the society of elders. In the social life of the middle Ages, children were treated like adults. Children in medieval artwork were painted in adult clothing. With this belief, if children wore the clothes of adults, they were expected to behave like adults. Believing in this theory made artists to show children in their paintings with the images, clothes and appearance of adults but on a smaller scale, or draw them in situations other than what is expected of the child. As many paintings in the middle Ages and Iranian paintings show children with the body and characteristics of adults. Signs of belief in this idea can be seen in the works of Iranian painters. One of the most important of these examples is the paintings containing the child in the Haft Aurang Jami version in the Ferrier Collection. More over In the works of Kamaluddin Behzad in the edition of "Persian Poetry Program", the work of "Woman and Child" by Reza Abbasi, a picture by Mirza Ali in Panj Ganj Nizami, the picture "Babie's testimony to the innocence of Yusuf (PBUH)" attributed to Mohammad Sabzevari, the picture of "Yusuf (PBUH) Shepherding" from the collection of Yusuf (PBUH) and Zulikhai Jami related to the Safavid period, are evident examples of children's pictures which are drawn with different proportions of adults.The present writing was done in a historical-descriptive way and the method of gathering information was a library, and its purpose is to express the theory of performationism children's paintings in the paintings of Haft Aurang Mahfouz in the Ferrier collection. For this purpose, in this research, this question is answered; how this theory manifested in Haft Orang Jami? The results of this research show that the theoretical expression of performationism in these paintings is evident in the facial expressions, clothing, positioning, body scale and the difficulty of distinguishing the gender of the characters. Children in the illustrations of this version are drawn in a way, they are depicted as adults.