Explaining the Rules of Horse Illustration in Three Timurid Shahnamas Relying on Equine science books

The horse has found its way into the images of books with the same strong presence that it had in the lives of the ancients - especially kings -, so it is considered one of the most important visual objects in the creation of miniatures. Given this issue and the view of the value of the animal, which not only represented the power and greatness of an army, but also played a unique role in the royal ostentation, one has to ask how the painters portrayed him. To what extent did those who lived in the context of the court society and possibly owned a horse, in the depiction of this animal, be faithful to the qualities that indicated a good and beautiful horse? Do these qualities, which are extracted from equine science books such as Farasnamas and other books written about horses, overlap with the criteria of illustrators in horse illustration or are they completely different from each other? Understanding the approach of illustrators in the illustration of designs depends on recognizing and studying written sources that have spoken directly about theoretical and practical issues related to Persian painting. Since this cultural land lacks such a written tradition, other sources have always been replaced and studied in order to understand the rules of this art, sources that may not be directly related to Iranian painting, but their subject matter is about the most prominent designs. It should be noted, however, that these sources can never arrive at a comprehensive theory of the criteria of illustration and ultimately provide a definition of the correct proportions of the motifs, a definition by which a complete work of art can be recognized. The sources studied here are equine science books. These books, which have been written, translated and sometimes illustrated under different titles such as Farsnama, al-beytarah, Al-Khail in different Islamic lands, are classified under natural sciences because they are written based on direct observations of horses. The purpose of writing these books is to transfer knowledge in order to understand good and bad horses, symptoms and treatment of diseases of this animal. What makes equine science book a valuable resource in the absence of artistic books and cited by art historians is their content. In these books, aesthetic qualities such as the beautiful shape of the limbs, movements, the size of each member in relation to the part and the whole, colors and whiteness that indicate the value or worthlessness of the horse is drawn. Given such content, which is full of descriptions of good and bad horses and the most detailed information about its appearance, it can be included in the field of Iranian painting because this art is always defined in great detail. In generally, two conclusions be drawn from this research, first, that the illustration of the horse in these three illustrated manuscripts was not outside the framework of nature. Secondly, the illustrators of Baysonghori Shahnama have made a commendable effort to depict a good horse, and their criteria are very close to those of equine science experts.