In this book, B.W. Robinson traces the development of the different styles of Persian painting during the fifteenth century, and considers a number of the problems and issues involved in establishing a methodology and system of classification for Persian painting of that period. Robinson begins, by way of background, with a review of the schools of Herat and Shiraz up to the middle of the century, and then proceeds to tackle in order the three main fields of controversy: painting under the Turkmans, Timurid paintings in Transoxiana and Timurid painting in India. The uneasy fusion of contrasting characteristics of Herat and Shiraz that resulted in the emergence of Turkman court painting is traced through the origins, development, and branching of the Turkman style into a definitive form. Then the author reviews a branch of the art almost entirely neglected up to now, which he identifies as originating in Transoxiana. Finally he provides a new approach to the study of pre-Mughal Indian painting in Persian style by dividing the material into five stylistic groups.

This is a detailed study of the illustrations to Am r Khusrau's Khamsah. The first extant exemplar is from the Persian area in the late 14th century, but a case can be made that work was probably illustrated earlier in India.

The work aims at bringing the Persian texts into the study of the arts and technology of the Indo-lranian world – an approach much neglected so far. Drawing upon Persian sources (both from Iran and India), viz., technical treatises, historical chronicles and poetical texts, the work deals with painting and the art of book making during twelfth to nineteenth century. The introduction presents the geographical and chronological dimensions of the study. After a brief history of Persian painting before the twelfth century, the book discusses mural painting, manuscripts, origin of paper and its fabrication, the composition of the page, colours/pigments used in the paintings, painting subjects, bookbinding, etc. The painter, man and artist, his origin, his training, his status, aesthetics and taste, his workshop and its organisation and distribution of tasks therein, modular construction of the manuscripts, library, the caligraphy surrounding the painting, its illuminations and binding are all analysed. In fact the book reconstructs the entire process of making an illustrated manuscript from its ground work to its binding. Persian text and illustrations enhance the utility of the work.

Skira.