Introducing the Version of Nezami's Khamseh Registered under NO. 5/39 in the Malek National Museum and Its Visual, Aesthetic and Thematic Features

This research aims at investigating the illustrated version of Nezami's Khamseh registered under No. 5/39 in the Malek National Library and Museum; to compensate for the fact that there are various pictured versions of the work in museums and libraries that, unfortunately, have not yet been researched. Generally speaking, Nezami's Khamseh is one of the masterpieces of Iranian literature and art and is amongst the versions always attracting the attention of artists because of its high illustrative aspects and type of stories. The version under investigation dates back to the 9^th century AH; however, it was rewritten. The rewriting author tried to write new pages in the same style as of the main author. Also, some illustrations were added to the version concerned. After introducing the aforesaid version and unknown images, the formal details and artistic specifications of illustrations were also investigated and analyzed. The versions include 20 single-illustrations in Nastaʿlīq script and no information is available on the illustrators and the patron. The questions of this research are: 1-What are the visual, aesthetic and thematic features of the version of Nezami’s Khamseh registered under No. 5/39 in the Malek National Museum? 2-Which parts of the version belong to the Timurid period and which parts are related to the Qajar period? According to the results, illustrations of Nezami's Khamseh may be categorized in five classifications: romantic, feast, battle, hunting and meeting. Furthermore, amongst special visual properties of the version are irregular design of figures, hasty design of scenes, multitude of figures, use of warm, cold and shiny colors, balanced distribution of live colors in the composition as well as style affinity of Nezami's Khamseh images with aesthetic principles on the basis of Iranian and western painting traditions. The methodology and nature of the research are fundamental and descriptive-analytic, respectively. The library method was used to collect the data. The answer to the second question is that the cover of the work and all illustrations and a number of pages in which the title of the story is in a rectangular frame containing plant designs belong to the Qajar period, while the other part with no designs belongs to the Timurid period.
The culture and history of Islamic art in Iran has always been linked to spiritual customs; customs that have been formed within the Islamic tradition and have established a set of relations and relationships on this basis. Therefore, in the traditional Islamic art of Iran, there is an inevitable link between different types of art and literature, and each of the arts, according to its capabilities, has sought to manifest an aspect of the eternal truth of the universe. In the field of visual arts, Iran as one of the most important centers of the art of Islamic civilization, has offered a kind of painting to the world that shows the spiritual link especially to the Islamic mysticism. This art has a close relationship with the illustration of mystical books and texts and has always portrayed the mystical manifestations of poets and mystics in a special way and exposed them to viewers. Examples include Haft Awrang of Jami, Divan of Hafiz, and Bustan of Sa’adi, but among all these, Nezami’s Khamseh has a special status.
Khamseh is a collection of five books of poetry, also known as Panj Ganj (The Five Treasures). Whenever Nezami talks about Khamseh in his works, he calls it “treasure”. The book has five poetic Masnavis: Makhzan al-Asrar, Khosrow and Shirin, Leily and Majnoon, Haft Peykar, and Eskandarnameh (Sharafnameh and Eqbalnameh). Each of these five poems has been authored separately at different times. Generally, writing Khamseh has taken at least more than 45 years. This collection consists of about thirty-two thousand verses and was written from 571 to 599 AH relying on didactic literature. Khamseh illustration is one of the long-standing traditions of Persian art and it can be named as the most popular manuscript among artists and supporters in this regard after Shahnameh illustration. Throughout history, Iranian painting has always flourished, and valuable exemplars of it have remained. The study of Khamseh of Nezami in different schools is useful in the process of better evaluating the Iranian painting, since it is a single book that has been illustrated many times throughout the history of Iranian painting. Because this illustrated version was hidden in a private collection, no researcher was aware of it which has kept it away from interested people until today. Now, in this article, this precious work, belonging to two artistic eras of Iran in the 9^th and the 13^th centuries AH, is revealed that can provide new revised research on the artistic schools of the Timurid era as well as the art and artists of the Qajar period.