Kemal ad Din Behzad

Behzad in the history of Persian art is a semi-legendary figure. Enthusiastic reviews of his contemporaries and later authors caused his hand to be credited with a large number of works - miniatures and drawings, which experts have still not been able to figure out completely. Behzad’s artistic authority was so high that the founder of the Mughal dynasty Babur found it necessary to mention him in his memoirs , not to mention such art historians as Dust Muhammad or Kazi Ahmed . Most historical reports were subsequently criticized. The most reliable information is considered to be those that are set forth by the famous historian Hondemir in the works created by him in 1499 and 1524 , that is, during the life of Behzad.

Behzad. Iskander and the seven wise men. Miniature. Hamsa Nizami. 1495-1496 British Library , London

The exact date of birth of the artist is unknown, and an approximate date is placed between 1455 and 1460 . Since there is no mention of his noble origin anywhere, it can be assumed that Behzad came from a family of poor citizens or artisans. According to historians, Behzad early left an orphan. He was brought up by the famous calligrapher and artist Mirek Nakkash Khorasani , who at the court of Sultan Hussein Baykar held a high position of kitabdar - the head of the library. Some sources report that there was another artist, Pir Said Ahmed Tabrizi , to whom Behzad owed his art. Unfortunately, the researchers have not yet found a single signed work by Pir Said Ahmed, therefore, the degree of influence of his artistic techniques on the young Behzad cannot be determined. In addition, Alisher Navoi , a vizier , poet and humanist , creator of the creative atmosphere that was inherent in the Herat court life during the reign of Sultan Hussein Baykar, had a great influence on the formation of Behzad’s personality and his worldview. Historians believe that Navoi was the direct patron of young talent. And Hondemir claims that already at the age of 23, Behzad became the leading artist of the Herat workshop.

In the 1480s , several manuscripts appeared in the walls of the Kitabhana of Sultan Hussein Baykar, in which researchers see the participation of Kemaleddin Behzad. In miniatures of these manuscripts, Behzad manifests himself both as a master of landscape , and as a master of battle scenes, and as a master of images of human figures and their individual characteristics. He owns many artistic innovations.

In the 1490s, by the decree of Sultan Hussein Baykar, Behzad was appointed head of the Sultan Kitabhane - a library and a book-writing workshop. Now Behzad not only creates miniatures and drawings, but also manages projects and directs the work of artists.

In 1506, Sultan Hussein of Baikar died, and a month after his death, Herat was captured by the troops of the Bukhara Khanate , led by its leader Mohammed Sheybani Khan . The founder of the Mughal Empire, Babur, in his "Notes" left such a mention about him: "... After Sheibani Khan took Herat, he very badly treated the wives and children of (both) sovereigns, not only with them, but with all the people. For the sake of the transient benefits of our short life, he committed all kinds of rudeness and obscenity ... All the poets and gifted people Khan Sheibani gave to power to Mullah Bennai ... Despite his ignorance, taught Kazi Ihtiar and Muhammad Mir Yusuf - famous and gifted Herat scholars - to interpret the Koran ; picking up a pen, he corrected the scriptures and drawings of Sultan Ali-i Mashhedi and the artist Behzad ... ” ^[3] . However, despite the descriptions of Babur, Behzad remained at the head of the Kitabhane in his former capacity, and Sheibani Khan posed for him. From that time, an excellent portrait of Sheybani Khan, created by the artist, remained.

Researchers suggest that Bekhzad spent 1507-1510 in Bukhara , where he followed Sheibani Khan along with other Herat artists (although Babur reports that he was in Herat during those years). However, in 1510, the founder of the Safavid dynasty, Shah Ismail I (reigned 1501-1524), defeated and killed Sheybani Khan, after which Behzad moved to Tabriz , the capital of the newly created Persian empire, which this time, through the conquests, the Safavid dynasty gathered. The glory of Behzad during this period reached its zenith. A more joke- like story has been preserved in history that during the Battle of Chaldyran in 1514 , in which the Ottoman Turks defeated the Persian army, Shah Ismail I hid Behzad and the calligrapher Shah Mahmoud Nishapuri in a cave as treasures.

The artist arrived at the court of Shah Ismail between 1520 and 1522. The Safavid historian of the Budag Munshi reports: “... at the time when the master Behzad arrived in Iraq, the master Sultan Muhammad already set up the work of the court kitabhana ...” That is, Behzad arrived at the finished workshop, with the established production of manuscripts. Hondemir reports that by his decree of April 24, 1522, Shah Ismail appointed Behzad the head of the Shah Kitabhane. In his decree, written in a characteristic flowery manner, it says: “... in accordance with this miracle of our century, a sample for painters and an example for goldsmiths, master Kemal-od-Din Behzad, who shamed Mani with his brush and painter with his pencil humiliated page Arjang ... ", and the" We order to instruct and to entrust him with the duties of supervision and monitoring of employees of the royal library, and calligraphers and painters, gilder and painter on the margins of the manuscript, and for the masters, dissolves gold and cooki Lebanon's gold leaves, as well as masters of the above professions within all our possessions ... "" He's with his hand must draw and write on the table of their heart, and on the page of his enlightened mind the image of selflessness and honesty form " ^[4] . However, a couple of years later, in 1524, Shah Ismail died unexpectedly at the age of 37, and later Behzad’s work was usually associated with the name of the next Safavid ruler, Shah Tahmasp I (reigned in 1525-1576), under whose patronage Behzad continued to serve in the Shah’s workshop until his death. In any case, the Safavid authors - Khondemir , Kazi Ahmed and Iskander Munshi , describe him precisely as the artist Shah Tahmasp.

About this period of Behzad’s life, the historian Budag-munshi reports the following: “ He was brought [to the court] from Khorasan, and for several years he was with the sovereign as an interlocutor. He always had decent conversations. [At the same time] he constantly took a sip [of wine] and for a moment could not do without ruby ​​wine and bright lips of the butler. He lived to be seventy years old and thus kept himself young. Despite the ban on drinking wine, [they did not touch him, because] they needed him, and His Majesty (that is, Shah Tahmasp) believed that the master was an old man with a clean lifestyle . ” The decree on the closure of all drinking establishments, opium smoking rooms, brothels and all kinds of entertainment institutions was issued by Tahmasp on September 16, 1534, that is, one and a half to two years before the artist’s death. However, as follows from the report of the Safavid historian, this decree did not apply to the master. In kitabhan, under the leadership of Behzad, his nephew, calligrapher Rustam Ali , and two grand-nephews, the artists Muhibb Ali and Muzaffar Ali , who followed the whole Behzad family in Tabriz to the court of Shah Ismail, worked.

Kemaleddin Behzad died in 1535 or in 1536. Mention of the place of his death is contained in the “Treatise on Calligraphers and Artists” by Kazi Ahmed. He writes: “His death in the capital city of Herat in the Kuh-i-Mukhtar region; he is buried in a fence full of picturesque images . " However, Dust Muhammad reports that the artist was buried in Tabriz, next to the grave of the mystic poet Sheikh Kamal. However, this author is the only one who reports that Behzad was buried precisely in Tabriz.

The artistic heritage left by Behzad still poses a problem for researchers, both in relation to attribution and in relation to the reconstruction of his creative evolution. There is only one manuscript with miniatures on which his signature is placed - this is the “ Bustan ” of the poet Saadi , which is now stored in the Cairo National Library. The manuscript was created for the library of Hussein Baykar, it contains four miniatures signed by Behzad; traces of his signature are also found on the frontispiece of the book. In the colophon , written by Sultan Ali Mashhedi, there is a date - 1488 , however, two miniatures contain a different date - 1489. However, even in this seemingly indisputable case, there are researchers who doubt the authenticity of the signatures. Miniatures of other manuscripts with varying degrees of confidence are attributed to Behzad’s brush based on comparative analysis. These are the thumbnails of manuscripts:

• Zafarname (Book of Victories by Sharaf al-Din Ali Yazdi ), dedicated to Hussein Baykar dating from 1467 , miniatures to 1480 ( Baltimore , Garrett Library)
• Hamsa (Five Poems) by Alisher Navoi with a dedication to Sultan Hussein Baykar from his son Badi al-Zaman (1485, the manuscript is divided into two parts, one in Oxford, the Bodleian Library, the other in Manchester )
• Mantik al-Tahir (Talks of Birds) by the poet Attar (1486, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art).
• Gulistan (The Rose Garden) Saadi (1486, private collection)
• Hamsa (Five Poems) by the poet Nizami , copy made in 1495-96 (London, British Library)
• Hamsa Nizami, a copy dated 1442, but with the addition of thumbnails dated 1490s (London, British Library).

Total seven manuscripts. Three of them - “Zafarname”, “Gulistan” and “Hamsa” by Nizami from 1495-96. contain inscriptions left by the Mughal emperor Jahangir (reigned in 1605-1627), who was an amateur and connoisseur of painting. In the notes, he ascribes to Behzad all the miniatures of Zafarname, 16 of the twenty-one miniatures of Khamsa by Nizami, and in relation to Gulistan he says that he cannot determine the artist’s hand. Most modern scholars share the opinion of Jahangir regarding the Zafarname manuscript, but they doubt the Hamsa of Nizami, as its miniatures are also attributed to Mirek , Abd al-Razzak and Kasim Ali . One was a teacher of Behzad, and the other two were his followers, so it is very difficult to distinguish their hand from the hand of Behzad. One way or another, but these three manuscripts served as a source of inspiration for the Mughal court artists. The Zafarname iconographic schemes were used to create Mughal dynastic stories such as Akbarnam . Some other Mughal manuscripts contain compositions directly copied from the Hamsa miniatures of Nizami from 1495-96.

In addition to these, there are two manuscripts dating to the beginning of the 16th century , created for Shah Tahmasp I, in which researchers guess Behzad’s hand - “ Shahnameh ” Firdousi (private collection), and another version of “ Hamsa ” Nizami from the British Library in London. Some of their miniatures have compositional features similar to the Saadi Bustan miniatures created by Behzad. However, the question of their authorship remains open.

Khondemir and Kazi Ahmed report that Behzad performed work not only in manuscripts, but also on separate sheets. These undoubtedly belonged to his hand include two portraits, Sheibani Khan and Hussein Baykar, as well as depicted in the tondo “Young and old man” (c. 1528, Gallery Freer, Washington ), and the sheet “Two fighting camels and their drovers ”( Tehran , Gulistan Palace Library). In addition, there are many individual drawings attributed to Behzad, which are scattered in different collections of the world, but their authorship is in doubt.

Discussions about Behzad’s individual artistic style are based on miniatures from Saadi’s Cairo Bustan. These miniatures are considered the starting point for understanding his work.

In the battle genre, Behzad created new iconographic schemes in which, despite the fury of the battles depicted, the balance of composition and color scheme reach the level of illusion of an oriental ornament , pleasing and soothing to the eye, but not turning into variegation. Its compositional solutions are characterized by a special balance and harmony. Before Behzad appeared, it was almost impossible to find another Persian artist who, with such an impeccable taste and sense of proportion, would arrange human figures and other compositional elements. He superbly owned the line, so his figures are characterized by a sense of movement. In addition, when portraying people, Behzad achieved portrait similarity, therefore, in many miniatures, researchers find duplicate persons, for example, Sultan Hussein Baykar. He is also credited with being the first to transmit a different skin color, as real people have. Especially many authors note the fact that Behzad liked to insert scenes from real life that were not directly related to the plot in his miniatures in order to revive and diversify them. They also note Behzad’s inherent sense of humor, which often appeared in his miniatures. An example is the miniature “ Garun al Rashid in the bathhouse”, created on the theme of the parable of the famous Baghdad caliph Harun al Rashid and the barber; in miniature over the clothes taken in the bathhouse you can see the royal crown.

Behzad had many followers and disciples. Among the most talented, Kashima Ali , Mir Seyid Ali , Aga Mirek and Muzaffar Ali should be mentioned. The art of Behzad had a long echo, and influenced the Central Asian ( Bukhara , Samarkand ), Safavid and Mughal painting .

In Uzbekistan, the name of Kemaleddin Behzad (Kamoliddin Behzod) is:

• National Institute of Arts and Design ^[5]
• Kamoliddin Behzod Memorial Garden Museum in Tashkent
• Museum of Arts named after Kamoliddin Behzod in Bukhara

Also, his name was carried by the National Museum of Tajikistan in Dushanbe until 2011

Behzad is mentioned in the novel “ My Name is Red ” by Orhan Pamuk as one of the great miniaturists.

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•  On Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kamaladdin Behzad
• Qazi Ahmed. Treatise on Calligraphers and Artists
• Treatise on Calligraphers and Artists
• The battle genre in the works of Behzad