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8. <strong>The</strong> Assassination <strong>of</strong> Khusraw Parviz. 11 3/16 x 10 3/4 inches. Fol. 742v. 1970.301.75<strong>The</strong> Assassination <strong>of</strong> Khusraw Parviz (Figure 8) illustrates one <strong>of</strong> thehistorical parts <strong>of</strong> Firdowsi's epic, in which a deposed shah is killed bya paid assassin on the order <strong>of</strong> his weak and intimidated son. In the text,this tragic episode in Sasanian history is described with deep feeling anda mounting sense <strong>of</strong> hopelessness. In the picture, the assassin, whose facehas been somewhat abraded, is painted rather more naturalistically thanusual. For the most part, however, the artist has dwelt upon the setting,a palace by night. <strong>The</strong> ladies <strong>of</strong> the harem wander about obliviously; thepageboys and watchmen gossip or sleep on duty. This picture is the work<strong>of</strong> a<strong>no</strong>ther <strong>of</strong> the younger artists, who had grown up at Shah Tahmasp'scourt. <strong>The</strong> violent campaigning, low humor, and high spirits <strong>of</strong> the earlyyears <strong>of</strong> Safavid rule would probably have seemed coarse and <strong>of</strong>fensiveto his ilk. As we can see from his painting, this was a time for understatement.Only by the closest scrutiny, by alerting all <strong>of</strong> our sensibilities,can we detect the horror. Times have changed. Humor has given way towit; monsters such as the lion-ape <strong>no</strong> longer scare; cruel deeds are <strong>no</strong>wshown at a distance, as though to keep the blood from our hands. By thetime this picture was painted, Shah Isma'il's ecstatic poetry would havebeen condemned as the raving <strong>of</strong> a dangerous fanatic; and the miniaturesfrom the first years <strong>of</strong> the project must have seemed disturbingly oldfashioned.NotesAlthough thousands <strong>of</strong> Safavid manuscripts <strong>of</strong> our period have survived, only ahandful can be considered to be <strong>of</strong> comparable artistic importance:About 1526: Hafiz Diwan, Cambridge, Fogg <strong>Art</strong> <strong>Museum</strong>, four (formerly five) miniatures.1526/27: Nawa'i Collected Works, Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, sup. turc 316, sixminiatures.1539-1543: Nizami, Khamseh, London, British <strong>Museum</strong>, Or. 2265, fourteen contemporaryminiatures.1556-1565: Jami, Haft Awrang, Washington, D. C., Freer Gallery <strong>of</strong> <strong>Art</strong>, 46.12, twentyeightminiatures.Ali, a sixteenth-century Turkish source, claims that Shah Isma'il was concernedabout Bihzad's safety at the battle <strong>of</strong> Chaldiran, near Tabriz, in 1514. This story is <strong>no</strong>tgiven elsewhere, and would seem to be apocryphal.
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- Page 21 and 22: The Temperamentof Juan GrisDOUGLAS
- Page 23 and 24: Harlequin with Guitar, 1917, by Gri
- Page 25 and 26: an overriding classical discipline.
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- Page 35 and 36: Most of the art of the Cameroon Gra