Persian "Miniature" is a multilayered, mysterious art form. The more traditional and metaphysical reading of its imagery connects it to the imaginal world and the realm of divinity, and the historical approach addresses its symbolic and mythological aspects. Nonetheless the mystery is not in what the painting reveals, but in the language concealed under the images. Persian painters reflect their deep understanding of geometry, astrology, and perspective by a worldly and temporal language, drawn through the painters' compass, set square, and rulers, and not through their virtuosity or imagination. /// Since the foundation of the first library-atelier in Rabi' Rashidi in Tabriz (1300 AD), until a bit later than "Shah Tahmasb's repentance" which led to the exclusion of the painters from the royal atelier (1600 AD), for three hundred years the Persian Miniature was following an identifiable, coherent, and integrated visual language. The method that has been applied to this study, which aims to decode this "particular way of seeing" is based on the routine of the works of medieval artists. it demystifies Iranian Miniature and leads to the hidden geometry of the image; an attempt to revive a remarkable visual thought in Iran's cultural geography. In this research, 120 illuminated manuscripts, from Jami' Al-tawarikh (1307 AD) to so-called Shah Abbas's Shahnameh (1597 AD), have been studied through the discoveries of Iranian medieval mathematicians.

Curator: Shariar Hatami