Shiraz Style of Turkman Painting School

This article is about Shiraz Style of Turkman painting School that assembled in the milieus of royal courts of PirBudaq AqQuyunlu and Sultan Khalil QaraQuyunln. Shiraz remained an important center of Book Arts during the Turkman dominion. The transition from the Timurids to the Turkman governors was relatively peaceful. Despite basic similarities of form and intention, Shiraz Style was conceptualized in widely different ways. Over time the aesthetic conception of Shiraz Style underwent a dramatic change under Turkman governors. Although Shiraz Style of Turkman painting school preserve works of art that are often at some remove from normative Persianate visual culture (normativity defined through the Arts of the book and painting), the importance of Shiraz Style is not only its salvage of unique materials. The Shiraz Style opens a window onto a landscape thought about the history, artists and media of the Persianate art tradition. Because the accumulated processes of Shiraz Style constitute nothing less than an articulation of the principles of art aesthetics, it presents an opportunity to study such ideas from inside the artistic culture of Persian painting. After death of Baysunghur and his father Shahrukh, many artists and practitioners sought patronage at other courts or Iran , in Shiraz , Isfahan , and Tabriz ,where they found willing patrons (among them PirBudaq in Shiraz and Yaqub Bey in Tabriz). The Timurid workshop’s achievements were probably acquired by one Turkman confederation at a time when the city of Herat was captured, such as the occupation of Jahanshah in862 H. ; period of occupation might also for the mechanism by which other productions and artists of Herat found way from Herat to center and western Iran ,particularly Shiraz . For example, Shaikh Mahmud Heravi began his artistic life in Yimurid Herat and then came into Pir Budaq court, after the Qara Quyunlu occupied Herat in 862H.; the core group of materials in Turkman court comes from eastern Iran (Herat), but it is combined with large quantities of paintings, drawings, and calligraphers made by practitioners under Turkmans. Materials produced at Shiraz under Tuarkman dominion are identifiable through the honorifics appended to calligrapher’s signatures. Pir Budaq must have found the workshops Shiraz painting school functioning, because the Shiraz style of Timurid era continued to be in the manuscripts of the860 and 863H.; these two manuscripts produced for Pir Budaq. Each has a medallion (Shamsa) on its opening folio with inscriptions indicating that it was produced for Pir Budaq library (Kitabkhana). The first is copy of divan of Katibi, copied by Abd al Rahman Khawarazmi, dated 860H., and the second copy of the divan of Qasim copied by Shaikh Mahmud Pir Budaqi, dated 863H. Both have binding and illumination of the highest quality without any illustration. Since Sultan Khalil Aq Quyunlu was then governor of Shiraz, the Shiraz Style must have been completed, suggesting that Sutan Khalil had taken over Pir Budaq library (Kitabkhana) in Shiraz.