Comparative analysis of illustrated copies of Khamsa of Nizami in the former and late Herat School

Iranian literature has been the source of inspiration for Iranian painters during different periods and most beautiful and imaginative Persian paintings have been influenced by the wise lyrics of the great poets such as Nizami Ganjavi. He is a grandmaster in lyrical and rich literature and his works are full of allegory and pictorial and accurate senses. On the other hand, one of the most important and effective Iranian painting schools is Herat School and there was increasing attention for illustrating the Khamsa.of Nizami. So this article try to discuss the development of depicted copies of Khamsa of Nizami in former and late periods of Herat School. Also, it explains the artistic characteristics of royal manuscripts which the former one is kept at the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad (the time of Shahrokh Timuri) and late ones are kept in the Library of the British Museum in London (the time of Soltan Hossein Bayghara). The main question of this study is what are the differences and similarities of depicted copies in former and late Herat School? The results of this study show that even though the painters have followed an aesthetic program with clear rules and conventions, their output results also reflect goals of who order artistic works and social situations and their innovations. In former Herat school, it seems, painter has depicted main story in Kamsa Nizami, but in late Herat School, painters have tried to show something more than main story by using extra poems and not focusing on main story. In the comparison, obviously late manuscripts are more artistic and elaborate than former one and show there was more desire for illustrating Khamsa of Nizami at late Herat Timuri.This study done by descriptive_ analytical method and comparative approach. The data are gathered by studying documents and books.