How the Persian Qalam Caused the Chinese Brush to Break: The Bahram Mirza Album Revisited

Abstract

Abstract This essay addresses the significance and status of Chinese art in sixteenth-century Iran through the lens of Safavid scholars, painters, and album compilers, as well as their patrons. It focuses on the album that Dust Muhammad compiled for Bahram Mirza, completed in 1544/45 and largely preserved in its original arrangement. A close examination of the relationship between the Chinese and Persianate paintings in this album—and comparisons with other paintings and drawings—demonstrates the ways in which Chinese artworks were perceived, adopted, and self-consciously adapted during Shah Tahmasp’s reign (r. 1524–76). Furthermore, my analysis of Dust Muhammad’s preface to the Barham Mirza Album and other important contemporary primary sources, such as the poem Āyīn-i Iskandarī (The Rules of Iskandar, 1543/44) by ʿAbdi Beg of Shiraz, reveals an early Safavid reluctance to embrace optical naturalism, which was strongly associated with the Chinese aesthetic. This analysis also elucidates the growing sense of a distinct pictorial style in Safavid Iran, which was thought to derive from an inner vision situated in the mind or heart of the painter. The mimetic abstraction of this Safavid-Shiʿi aesthetic, initially connected to Imam ʿAli, was considered superior to the optical naturalism of the Chinese aesthetic.