The Comparative Study between “Soge Shoye Leili” miniature and poem of Nizami on the same subject

Persian painting used to be dependent on Persian literature for decades. Among Persian poets Nizami is one of the most famous storytellers of 7th (13th A.D) century. Containing elaborations and outstanding pictorial power, his valuable works and especially the masterpiece of “leili & Majnun” is imitated by poets in various schools and is painted times and times by different miniaturists in different courts. Through the whole story, some parts like the section in which Leili’s husband dies has been rarely noticed or painted in comparison to most parts. This paper studies this painting and compares it to Nizami’s poem on the same subject. Due to Nizami, in spite of loved by Majnun, Leili is forced by her family to marry a wealthy man Ibn-e-salam. In this part of the story, Nizami explains his death and the reaction of Leili toward it. Although she is mourning so sadly, but in fact she is heartsick of Majnun’s absence rather than her husband’s. The painting, named ”Soge shoye leili”, also shows this mourning. The loyalty of the painting to the poem and revealing a common subject by means of two different medias are the notes this paper is dealing with. The miniature belongs to a manuscript of “Leili & Majnun” of Herat-school in 9th (15th A.D) century which shows obvious traces of Bihzad the great master or his students. Most scholars ascribe it to Sheikhzadeh, one of his talented students who founded the basics of Bokhara-school after immigration. Having certain skills in his own field, the painter did not restrict himself thoroughly to the text. Neglecting the poem’s explicitness about Leili’s solitude, Sheikhzade has painted a crowded realistic mourning ceremony by special aesthetic elements of Persian painting without any mention to Nizami’s story or even highlighting Leili among other mourners distinctly. The single line of poem at the top of the painting, like the Persian painting tradition, has no direct mention to the story. On the other hand, creative constitutions of some poetic elements to details of the miniature, has made his work maintain the relationship with the poem through some indirect similarities. For instance all Leili’s behaviors described in the poem are being acted out by other people in the scene, whilst their irregular composition symbolically indicates her complex feelings, satisfied but also slightly sorry for her husband’s death. Furthermore, utilizing dull and drab colors has reinforced grim atmosphere of mourning versus sad terms implied in the poem. With his tools of colors and lines, sheikhzadeh did not posses Nizami’s expressive ways to uncover Leili’s mixed emotions. Thus, on the contrary to Nizami focusing merely on internal aspects of her feelings in the poem, Sheikhzade has depicted the scene from his own external point of view. This difference in two artist’s concentration center is the dominant point of two works. Consequently both factors, attributions and limitations of the painting and also special viewpoint of the painter, lead to totally different works despite of deep integration.