The limner's art in Persia has few patrons, and the professional
draughtsman of the present day in that country must needs be an
enthusiast, and an art-lover for art's sake, as his remuneration is so
small as to be a mere pittance; and the man who can live by his brush
must be clever indeed. The Persians are an eminently practical people,
and buy nothing unless it be of actual utility; hence the artist has
generally to sink to the mere decorator; and as all, even the very
rich, expect a great deal for a little money, the work must be scamped
in order to produce a great effect for a paltry reward. The artists,
moreover, are all self-taught, or nearly so, pupilage merely consisting
of the drudgery of preparing the canvas, panel, or other material for
the master, mixing the colors, filling in backgrounds, varnishing,
&c. There are no schools of art, no lectures, no museums of old or
contemporary masters, no canons of taste, no drawing from nature or the
model, no graduated studies, or system of any kind. There is, however,
a certain custom of adhering to tradition and the conventional;
and most of the art workmen of Iran, save the select few, are mere
reproducers of the ideas of their predecessors.
The system of perspective is erroneous; but neither example nor
argument can alter the views of a Persian artist on this subject.
Leaving aside the wonderful blending of colors in native carpets,
tapestries, and embroideries, all of which improve by the toning
influence of age, the modern Persian colorist is remarkable for his
skill in the constant use of numerous gaudy and incongruous colors, yet
making one harmonious and effective whole, which surprises us by its
daring, but compels our reluctant admiration.
Persian pictorial art is original, and it is cheap; the wages of a
clever artist are about one shilling and sixpence a day. In fact, he is
a mere day-laborer, and his terms are, so many days' pay for a certain
picture. In this pernicious system of time-work lies the cause of the
scamping of many really ingenious pieces of work.
As a copyist the Persian is unrivalled; he has a more than Chinese
accuracy of reproduction; every copy is a fac-simile of its original,
the detail being scamped, or the reverse, according to the scale of
payment. In unoriginal work, such as the multiplication of some popular
design, a man will pass a lifetime, because he finds it pay better to
do this than to originate. This kind of unoriginal decoration is most
frequent in the painted mirror cases and book-covers, the designs of
which are ancient; and the painter merely reproduces the successful and
popular work of some old and forgotten master.
But where the Persian artist shines is in his readiness to undertake
any style or subject; geometrical patterns—and they are very clever
in originating these; scroll-work scenes from the poets; likenesses,
miniatures, paintings of flowers or birds; in any media, on any
substance, oils, water, or enamel, and painting on porcelain; all are
produced with rapidity, wonderful spirit, and striking originality. In
landscape, the Persian is very weak; and his attempts at presenting the
nude, of which he is particularly fond, are mostly beneath contempt. A
street scene will be painted in oils and varnished to order “in a week”
on a canvas a yard square, the details of the painting desired being
furnished in conversation. While the patron is speaking, the artist
rapidly makes an outline sketch in white paint; and any suggested
alterations are made in a few seconds by the facile hand of the _ustad
nakosh_ (master-painter), a term used to distinguish the artist from
the mere portrait-painter or _akkas_, a branch of the profession
much despised by the artists, a body of men who consider their art a
mechanical one, and their guild no more distinguished than those of
other handicraftsmen.
A Persian artist will always prefer to reproduce rather than originate,
because, as a copy will sell for the same price as an original, by
multiplication more money can be earned in a certain time, than by the
exercise of originality. Rarely, among the better class of artists,
is anything actually out of drawing; the perspective is of course
faulty, and resembles that of early specimens of Byzantine art. Such
monstrosities as the making the principal personages giants, and the
subsidiaries dwarfs, are common; while the beauties are represented as
much bejewelled; but this is done to please the buyer's taste, and the
artist knows its absurdity. There is often considerable weakness as
to the rendering of the extremities; but as the Persian artist never
draws, save in portraiture, from the life, this is not to be wondered
at.
The writer has before him a fair instance of the native artist's
rendering of the scene at the administration of the bastinado. This
picture is an original painting in oils, twenty-four inches by sixteen
on _papier-mâché_. The details were given to the artist by the writer
in conversation, sketched by him in white paint on the _papier mâché_
during the giving of the order, in the course of half an hour; and the
finished picture was completed, varnished, and delivered in a week. The
price paid for this original work in oils in 1880 was seven shillings
and sixpence. The costumes are quite accurate in the minutest detail;
the many and staring colors employed are such as are in actual use;
while the general _mise en scène_ is very correct.
Many similar oil-paintings were executed for the writer by Persian
artists, giving graphic renderings of the manners and customs of this
little-known country. They were always equally spirited, and minutely
correct as to costume and detail, at the same low price; a small
present for an extraordinarily successful performance gladdening the
heart of the artist beyond his expectations.
As to original work by Persian artists in water-color, remuneration
is the same—so much per diem. A series of water-colors giving minute
details of Persian life were wished; and a clever artist was found
as anxious to proceed as the writer was to obtain the sketches. The
commission was given, and the subjects desired carefully indicated
to the artist, who, by a rapid outline sketch in pencil, showed his
intelligence and grasp of the subject. The writer, delighted at the
thought of securing a correct and permanent record of the manners and
customs of a little-known people, congratulated himself. But, alas!
he counted his chickens before hatching; for the artist, on coming
with his next water-color, demanded, and received, a double wage. A
similar result followed the finishing of each drawing; and though
the first only cost three shillings, and the second six, the writer
was reluctantly compelled to stop his commissions, after paying four
times the price of the first for his third water-color, on the artist
demanding twenty-four shillings for a fourth—not that the work was
more, but as he found himself appreciated, the wily painter kept
to arithmetical progression as his scale of charge; a very simple
principle, which all artists must devoutly wish they could insist on.
For a reduced copy of a rather celebrated painting, of which the
figures were life-size, of what might be called, comparatively
speaking, a Persian old master—for this reduction, in oils, fourteen
inches by eight, and fairly well done, the charge was a sovereign.
The piece was painted on a panel. The subject is a royal banqueting
scene in Ispahan—the date a century and a half ago. The dresses are
those of the time—the ancient court costume of Persia. The king in a
brocaded robe is represented seated on a carpet at the head of a room,
his drinking-cup in his hand; while his courtiers are squatted in two
rows at the sides of the room, and are also carousing. Minstrels and
singers occupy the foreground of the picture; and a row of handsome
dancing-girls form the central group. All the figures are portraits of
historical personages; and, in the copy, the likenesses are faithfully
retained.
The palaces of Ispahan are decorated with large oil paintings by the
most eminent Persian artists of their day. All are life-size, and none
are devoid of merit. Some are very clever, particularly the likenesses
of Futteh Ali Shah and his sons, several of whom were strikingly
like their father. As Futteh Ali Shah had an acknowledged family of
seventy-two, this latter fact is curious. These paintings are without
frames, spaces having been made in the walls to receive them. The
Virgin Mary is frequently represented in these mural paintings; also
a Mr. Strachey, a young diplomate who accompanied the English mission
to Persia in the reign of our Queen Elizabeth, is still admired as
a type of adolescent beauty. He is represented with auburn hair in
the correct costume of the period; and copies of his portrait are
still often painted on the pen-cases of amateurs. These pen-cases, or
_kalamdans_, are the principal occupation of the miniature-painter.
As one-fourth of the male population of Persia can write, and as each
man has one or more pen-cases, the artist finds a constant market for
his wares in their adornment. The pen-case is a box of _papier-mâché_
eight inches long, an inch and a half broad, and the same deep. Some of
them, painted by artists of renown, are of great value, forty pounds
being a common price to pay for such a work of art by a rich amateur.
Several fine specimens may be seen in the Persian Collection at the
South Kensington Museum. It is possible to spend a year's hard work
on the miniatures painted on a pen-case. These are very minute and
beautiful. The writer possesses a pen-case, painted during the lifetime
of Futteh Ali Shah, a king of Persia who reigned long and well. All the
faces—none more than a quarter of an inch in diameter—are likenesses;
and the long black beard of the king reaching to his waist, is not
exaggerated, for such beards are common in Persia.
Bookbinding in Persia is an art, and not a trade; and here the flower
and bird painter finds his employment. Bright bindings of boards
with a leather back are decorated by the artist, principally with
presentments of birds and flowers, both being a strange mixture of
nature and imagination; for if a Persian artist in this branch thinks
that he can improve on nature in the matter of color, he attempts
it. The most startling productions are the result; his nightingales
being birds of gorgeous plumage, and the colors of some of his flowers
saying much for his imagination. This method of “painting the lily” is
common in Persia; for the narcissus—bouquets of which form the constant
ornament in spring of even the poorest homes—is usually “improved” by
rings of colored paper, silk, or velvet being introduced over the inner
ring of the petals. Startling floral novelties are the result; and
the European seeing them for the first time, is invariably deceived,
and cheated into admiration of what turns out afterwards to be a
transparent trick. Of course, this system of binding each book in an
original cover of its own, among a nation so literary as the Persians,
gives a continuous and healthy impetus to the art of the flower-painter.
Enamelling in Persia is a dying art. The best enamels are done on
gold, and often surrounded by a ring or frame of transparent enamel,
grass-green in color. This green enamel, or rather transparent paste,
is supposed to be peculiar to the Persian artist. At times, the gold is
hammered into depressions, which are filled with designs in enamel on a
white paste, the spaces between the depressions being burnished gold.
Large _plaques_ are frequently enamelled on gold for the rich; and
often the golden water-pipes are decorated with enamels, either alone,
or in combination with incrusted gems.
Yet another field remains to the Persian artist—that of engraving
on gold, silver, brass, copper, and iron. Here the work is usually
artistically good, and always original, no two pieces being alike.
Something must be said about the artist and his studio. Abject poverty
is the almost universal lot of the Persian artist. He is, however, an
educated man, and generally well-read. His marvellous memory helps him
to retain the traditional attributes of certain well-known figures:
the black-bearded Rustum (the Persian Hercules), and his opponent
the Deev Suffid or White Demon; Leila and Mujnūn, the latter of whom
retired to the wilderness for love of the beautiful Leila; and in a
painfully attenuated state, all his ribs being very apparent, is always
represented as conversing with the wild beasts, who sit around him
in various attitudes of respectful attention. Dr. Tanner could never
hope to reach the stage of interesting emaciation to which the Persian
artists represent Mujnūn to have attained. Another popular subject is
that of Solomon in all his glory.
These legends are portrayed with varying art but unquestionable
spirit, and often much humor; while the poetical legends of the
mythical history of ancient Persia, full of strange imagery, find apt
illustrators in the Persian artist. The palmy days of book-illustration
have departed; the cheap reprints of Bombay have taken away the
_raison d'être_ of the caligraphist and book-illustrators, and the few
really great artists who remain are employed by the present Shah in
illustrating his great copy of the _Arabian Nights_ by miniatures which
emulate the beauty and detail of the best specimens of ancient monkish
art, or in making bad copies of European lithographs to “adorn” the
walls of the royal palaces.
As for the painter's studio, it is usually a bare but light apartment,
open to the winds, in a corner of which, on a scrap of matting, the
artist kneels, sitting on his heels. (It tires an oriental to sit
in a chair.) A tiny table a foot high holds all his materials; his
paints are mixed on a tile; and his palette is usually a bit of
broken crockery. His brushes he makes himself. Water-pipe in mouth—a
luxury that even an artist can afford, in a country where tobacco
is fourpence a pound—his work held on his knee in his left hand,
without a mahl-stick or the assistance of a color-man, the artist
squats contentedly at his work. He is ambitious, proud of his powers,
and loves his art for art's sake. Generally, he does two classes of
work—the one the traditional copies of the popular scenes before
described, or the painting on pen cases—by this he lives; the other
purely ideal, in which he deals with art from a higher point of view,
and practises the particular branch which he affects.
As a painter of likenesses, the Persian seldom succeeds in flattering.
The likeness is assuredly obtained; but the sitter is usually “guyed,”
and a caricature is generally the result. This is not the case in the
portraits of females, and in the ideal heads of women and children.
The large dreamy eye and long lashes, the full red lips, and naturally
high color, the jetty or dark auburn locks (a color caused by the use
of henna, a dye) of the Persian women in their natural luxuriance, lend
themselves to the successful production of the peculiarly felicitous
representation of female beauty in which the Persian artist delights.
Accuracy in costume is highly prized, and the minutiæ of dress are
indicated with much aptness, the varied pattern of a shawl or scarf
being rendered with almost Chinese detail. Beauty of the brunette
type is the special choice of the artist and amateur, and “salt”—as a
high-colored complexion is termed—is much admired.
Like the ancient Byzantine artist, the Persian makes a free use of
gold and silver in his work. When wishing to represent the precious
metals, he first gilds or silvers the desired portion of the canvas or
panel, and then with a fine brush puts in shadows, etc. In this way a
strangely magnificent effect is produced. The presentments of mailed
warriors are done in this way; and the jewelled chairs, thrones, and
goblets in which the oriental mind delights. Gilt backgrounds, too, are
not uncommon, and their effect is far from displeasing.
The painting of portraits of Mohammed, Ali, Houssein, and Hassan—the
last three, relatives of the Prophet, and the principal martyred
saints in the Persian calendar, is almost a trade in itself, though
the representation of the human form is contrary to the Mohammedan
religion, and the saints are generally represented as veiled and
faceless figures. Yet in these particular cases, custom has overridden
religious law, and the _Schamayūl_ (or portrait of Ali) is common.
He is represented as a portly personage of swarthy hue; his dark and
scanty beard, which is typical of the family of Mohammed, crisply
curled; his hand is grasping his sword; and he is usually depicted as
wearing a green robe and turban (the holy color of the _Seyyuds_ or
descendants of the Prophet). A nimbus surrounds his head; and he is
seated on an antelope's skin, for the Persians say that skins were used
in Arabia before the luxury of carpets was known there.
Humble as is the lot of the Persian artist, he expects to be treated by
the educated with consideration, and would be terribly hurt at any want
of civility. One well-known man, Agha Abdullah of Shiraz, generally
insisted on regaling the writer with coffee, which he prepared himself
when his studio was visited. To have declined this would have been
to give mortal offence. On one of these visits, his little brasier
of charcoal was nearly extinguished, and the host had recourse to a
curious kind of fire-igniter, reviver, or rather steam-blast, that
as yet is probably undescribed in books. It was of hammered copper,
and had a date on it that made it three hundred years old. It was
fairly well modelled; and this curious domestic implement was in the
similitude of a small duck preening its breast; consequently, the open
beak, having a spout similar to that of a tea-kettle, was directed
downwards. The Persian poured an ounce or so of water into the copper
bird, and placed it on the expiring embers. Certainly the result
was surprising. In a few minutes the small quantity of water boiled
fiercely; a jet of steam was emitted from the open bill, and very
shortly the charcoal was burning brightly. The water having all boiled
away, the Persian triumphantly removed this scientific bellows with his
tongs, and prepared coffee.
No mention has been made of the curious bazaar pictures, sold for a few
pence. These cost little, but are very clever, and give free scope for
originality, which is the great characteristic of the Persian artist.
They consist of studies of town-life, ideal pictures of dancing-girls,
and such-like. All are bold, ingenious, and original. But bazaar
pictures would take a chapter to themselves, and occupy more space than
can be spared.—_Chambers's Journal._