Persian Miniatures as a Lens for Understanding Historical, Social,

and Artistic Perspectives in 15th-Century Persia

Ziqian Ding

Sheng Hua Zizhu Academy, Shanghai, China

Keywords: Persia Miniature Trade Culture, Paint, Transportation.

Abstract: The background of the study is based on the history, society and art of Persia based on a way of painting in

Persia during the 15th century after the multicultural influences such as the Silk Road and the conquests of

the Mongol Empire. For this study, the main focus is to analyze a painting based on various aspects and

compare it with paintings of the same subject matter from different periods to explain why Persian Miniatures

are different from other local paintings and to explore the factors that influenced them from other countries.

The result of this study is that Persian Miniatures are influenced by the local culture in the overall composition

and some details, and in the overall framework they are painted according to the local culture.

1 INTRODUCTION

This study sets out to examine how Persia, having

been influenced by different cultures, brings out the

influences in images. This study is of great

significance for how to further analyze the historical

information embedded in the images themselves, and

to use the historical materials themselves as a definite

evidence of cultural exchange. This study focuses on

the specific aspects of the study in terms of the

information fed back from the images of the selected

Persian miniatures themselves. Literature analysis

method is used to find and read relevant information

and literature, the advantage of this method is that it

can well analyze the original source of the

information contained in the images of this Persian

Miniaturist painting and determine the influence of

the Persian native culture given to this Persian

Miniaturist painting by the Persian Miniaturist

painting itself, and at the same time, by comparing

paintings with the same theme in different periods,

the characteristics of this Persian Miniaturist painting

can be visualized, which is conducive to the study.

The ultimate goal of this study is to make the

researcher more aware of how the Persian civilization

was influenced by other civilizations in the 15th

century as reflected in the paintings of Persian

Miniatures in the 15th century, and then to cover

more comprehensive information when analyzing

other paintings, in order to achieve the goal, a variety

of materials were examined and compared to support

the reliability of thesis.

2 IMAGE ANALYSIS IN PERSIAN

MINIATURE

First, the information contained in the Persian

miniatures is analyzed. As shown in Figure 1, the

painting titled “John and the Whale (a Jami al-

Tavarikh, 1400) 1” depicts, from left to right, a pear

tree on land, a man with a beard, a large fish, and a

winged man holding clothes. The objects themselves

have religious references.

Figure 1: John and the whale. Jonah and the Whale, Folio

from a Jami al-Tavarikh (Compendium of Chroni-

cles).Jstor. ca. 1400. https://www.jstor.org/stable/commu-

nity.18324224.

380

Ding, Z.

Persian Miniatures as a Lens for Understanding Historical, Social, and Artistic Perspectives in 15th-Century Persia.

DOI: 10.5220/0013993400004912

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Innovative Education and Social Development (IESD 2025), pages 380-383

ISBN: 978-989-758-779-5

Therefore, if one wants to analyze the images of

this painting, it is first necessary to understand the

source of inspiration for the creation of this painting,

which comes from a book called Chronicle

Compendium, and since the first edition of this book

was written in the 13th century, it is possible that this

15th century Persian miniaturized painting appeared

inside the copy. The name of the painting is derived

from the Biblical phrase “John and the Whale,” which

reads, “And the LORD commanded the fish, and the

fish vomited up Jonah into the dry land. 2” And in

reflecting on this one, the characters can be matched.

John is the one on top of the fish's mouth, and Jehovah

is the one on top of the fish, and from these pre-

existing sources, a further comparative study can be

made of this pair of sources. Compare this painting

with a painting of the same subject, such as the Dutch

“John and the Whale” from the sixteenth century,

shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Jonah Cast on Shore by the Fish. Artist: Antonius

Wierix, II (Netherlandish, Antwerp 1555/59-1604 Ant-

werp), Artist: Hieronymus (Jerome) Wierix (Netherlandish,

ca. 1553-1619 Antwerp), and Artist: After Maerten de Vos

(Netherlandish, Antwerp 1532-1603 Antwerp). Jonah Cast

on Shore by the Fish. Jstor. ca. 1585. https://www.jstor.

org/stable/community.18575686.

In the Dutch painting, there is no Jehovah, but the

scene and the depiction of the figures show the

differences between the Persian miniatures and the

European painting(Antonius Wierix, Hieronymus

(Jerome) Wierix and After Maerten de Vos, 1585).

First of all, from a perspective point of view, Persian

miniatures do not have a very clear perspective, while

this Dutch painting has a two-point perspective

(Keshmiri, 2000). Analyzing the backgrounds of the

paintings, the Persian miniatures show more of the

natural world, while the Dutch paintings show the

ships and houses of the time, and combined with the

humanism of the post-Renaissance period, the

religious connotations of the paintings are diluted by

the absence of Jehovah and the man-made objects.

The presence of Jehovah in the Persian miniatures

reinforces the religious atmosphere of the paintings.

Religion played an important role in the history of

Persia, so religious translations and exchanges also

occurred in Persia, and the Bible was one of them

(Yamauchi, 1991). The background of this painting

and the figures shown in this painting use images to

show the different ideas that the Persians had about

the figures and objects and the objects that appeared

in them, in this Persian miniatures painting, the image

of John and the image of the big fish are quite

different from the Dutch painting. The image of John

in the Persian miniatures is more oriented to a middle-

aged man in terms of perception, whereas the image

of Holland is more oriented to a middle-aged or old

man, because the muscles and facial texture of John

in the Persian miniatures are not clearly defined, and

also, in the Persian miniatures, John has black hair

and beard. In the Dutch painting, John is depicted

with clear muscle lines and a pale beard and hair. The

two paintings also diverge in their drawings of fish.

In Persian Miniatures, the depiction of fish is more

like the fish that can be seen in reality, although in the

treatment of details, Persian Miniatures fish will be

abbreviated, but from the overall appearance, Persian

Miniatures fish is more like the real fish. The Dutch

paintings, in contrast to the fine drawings, tend to be

more of a fantastical image of a fish, rather than a

realistic one, in terms of the fish. So, although the

fineness of this miniaturization is slightly less than

that of the paintings made more than a hundred years

later, this miniaturization is based on the things

observed in reality, and even the image of Jehovah is

expressed by using the image of a human being.

3 REASONS FOR THE

FORMATION OF PERSIAN

MINIATURIZATION STYLE

3.1 Impact of Culture

Based on the content of Persian miniatures, it was

found that Persian miniatures were influenced by

Christianity. This is because most of the stories

depicted in the paintings are derived from classic

Christian books. According to the Byzantines who

had a basic understanding of the Persians, it can be

concluded that both indirectly and directly, the

Christian world and Persia also had a certain way of

communication and exchange (Todt, 2013). And it is

this kind of exchange and communication will lead to

Persian Miniatures as a Lens for Understanding Historical, Social, and Artistic Perspectives in 15th-Century Persia

381

people's concepts and can be exposed to things

differently, take the exchange between China and

Persia as an example, China used to trade with Persia,

to distinguish between the different fabrics, derived

from the Persian silk, and this can be used as a way to

distinguish between different things for the different

things exposed to the different ways of things

(Hansen, Valerie, and Xinjiang Rong, 2013). This

difference is also reflected in this Persian painting,

which is due to the role of the native culture.

However, in addition to the influence of foreign

cultures on Persia, foreign crops also influenced the

Persians. In this painting, pears appear, and according

to the research, pears, as an exotic crop, after being

cultivated in Persia for many years, appeared more

frequently in the Persian paintings (Abdollahi, 2021).

What this shows is that a painting itself reflects what

is objectively available in a society, and that Persia

reflects on the level of what is objectively available

the variation and universality of crops that are

available in other countries in its own.

The context of the painting also reflects its

cultural impact. As mentioned earlier, the painting

was presented in a book related to history, so it proves

that Persian miniatures could be used as an

illustration or a note in an official document, giving

the text a function to be viewed. The style of the

painting itself has also had an impact on history. First,

because of the Silk Road, Chinese culture had the

opportunity to exchange with Persian culture, and the

objects created by Persian civilization were also

exchanged with other civilizations, such as India

(Rostovtzeff, 1927). When Persian culture interacted

with other cultures, the influence on other cultures

also led to the emergence of something new, such as

the Mughal miniatures, which in the timeline were

created in the 16th century after the heyday of Persian

miniatures, and can be viewed as a source of

information on the cultural influence of Persia on

other countries. In Mughal Miniatures, the style of

painting is not too different from that of Persian

Miniatures, but in the treatment of details, Mughal

Miniatures and Persian Miniatures are not the same.

So, if Persian fine painting was influenced by other

painting styles, then the painting styles that

influenced Persian fine painting must also possess a

certain number of characteristics with Persian fine

painting, but it is difficult to speculate the exact

number of characteristics that are the same. Persian

painting itself, as a foreign form of culture for India,

must have been introduced in the exchange with other

cultures, and this introduction should be a long-term

influence, because in the case of only a single copy of

the situation, it is difficult for human beings to go to

make for other things need to be presented in the

image of, so, in this regard, the spread of this art form

can be illustrated by the two civilizations Therefore,

in this respect, the spread of this art form can illustrate

the long-term communication between the two

civilizations in history. Through the similarities with

other civilizations, as reflected by the influence of

other civilizations' art forms, combined with the

probability of occurrence in geographic locations and

documentary records, it is possible to speculate on the

civilization that influenced the evolution of a culture.

Among the objects in the creation of art, foreign

things can also be presented in the picture as a visual

representation, as in the case of the silk in the hands

of Jehovah. In the Persian miniatures, the material of

the clothing worn by Jehovah is more like silk, while

in the Dutch paintings, the fabric worn by John is

more like linen. Silk, as a thing of Chinese origin, was

accepted by the Persians after entering Persia, which

led to the emergence of foreign things in the Persian

miniatures, and this can be recorded in history as a

thing that can be touched in reality.

3.2 The Role of Indigenous Culture

In Persian Miniatures, native culture also plays an

important role. As mentioned in the previous section,

the appearance of pears in Persian Miniatures is not a

completely foreign species, but a product of local

cultivation and breeding. This, in turn, illustrates the

ability of the Persian homeland to localize non-native

products. As a result, the things that appear in this

painting are localized to a certain extent, or the

author's understanding of the characters and the

objects appearing in the painting are mixed in to make

the effect of this painting different from that of other

regions. For example, fish, Persia used the Persian

Gulf for trade in the third century, so the Persians had

direct access to fish (Cobb, Matthew, 2015). So, the

fish in Persian paintings possess a more reasonable

appearance. However, this can only be taken as a

rough speculation. It does not serve as a role of

indigenous culture that can be identified. What can

truly be identified as an indigenous cultural role in

this painting is the portrait of Jehovah. In this Persian

painting, Jehovah is depicted as a young man without

a beard, whereas in most Western paintings, Jehovah

is often depicted as an older man with a beard. The

reason for this kind of thing has a source. Because a

religious story undergoes changes over time as it

spreads, and because in the old days, it was difficult

to preserve and spread visual material, it led to

differences in the illustrations that appeared in

different religious stories. The image of Jehovah

IESD 2025 - International Conference on Innovative Education and Social Development

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reflected in the Persian miniatures can be visualized

as being influenced by the Persian artist's ideas,

resulting in a very different image of Jehovah than the

Western understanding of Jehovah. What is reflected

in the Persian miniatures is the Persian idea of the

image of Jehovah. In this picture, then, it may be

observed that Jehovah here is in the likeness of a

young man clothed in silk, and possessed of wings on

his back. As to the conditions, then, under which such

a thing would take place it is as before set forth, and

therefore will not be repeated. Another figure, John,

was also localized by the Persians, as can be seen in

the comparison between the Persian miniatures and

the Dutch paintings, the Persians' portrayal of the

figure is flatter because of their more local way of

dealing with the space, and so, based on this aspect,

the local culture of Persia has given Persia a

characteristic that separates it from the rest of the

cultures. This separation of characteristics can be

used as a historically researchable goal, so that the

unique characteristics of the Persian art form given by

the native culture of Persia, and this unique

characteristic, in turn, the Persian culture itself more

complete. Because of the special characteristics of

Persia's geographic location, it led to a trade in which

Persia could not only passively accept the cultures of

other countries, but also spread the local culture, as

described in the Mughal Miniatures, in which the

overall framework of Mughal Miniatures was based

on Persian Miniatures, and this is the other side of

Persian Miniatures, the spread of the local culture.

4 CONCLUSION

The findings of this study are that what is shown from

Persian fine paintings is the presentation of a fusion

in the picture after a long period of multicultural

influence. The study further concludes that Chinese

and Christian cultures and objects reflected in Persian

miniatures had an impact on the creation of Persian

miniatures. This study provides a lot of valuable

references for future research in this direction, which

mainly affects how to conduct further research on

some places or civilizations that have played a

important role in cultural exchanges in the context of

multiculturalism, and how to conduct further research

on the areas where cultural exchanges have taken

place or how the civilizations that have been

exchanged have been fed back on the screen can be

show in the In-depth research.

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