Muhammad Ali (artist, worked in Isfahan)

Born in the family of the artist Malik Hussein Isfahani, who is known as the author of the frontispiece to the manuscript " Shahname " from 1648 ( Windsor , Library). However, judging by the style of the works, the son did not follow in his father’s footsteps. His works are closer to the works of his contemporary Muhammad Qasim .

Unlike his other contemporary, Muin Musavvir , Muhammad Ali did not invent any innovations. Researchers unanimously consider his work as the logical conclusion of ideas expressed by the late art of Riza yi Abbasi . The artist took part in illustrating several manuscripts, in particular, the “Divan” (Poet's collection) by Hafiz (1640, Istanbul , Topkapi Shed), for which he created a large number of drawings with a tint in the manner of Muhammadi . He also created eight drawings for the poem "Suz wa Gudaz" (Burning and All-consuming), written by the poet Muhammad Riza Navi at the request of the son of the Mughal emperor Akbar , Prince Daniyal. (Baltimore, Walters Collection).

The greatest popularity among contemporaries brought to the artist drawings on separate sheets. Like Rizee y-Abbasi and Muhammad Qasim, he preferred topics such as elegant young men, women, and hermit sheikhs. Of course, these drawings have features that distinguish them from the drawings of other artists. For example, the curls in the portraits of young men always hang down from one side below the ear, and from the other side fluffed around the cheek, shading its outline. Instead of a space with a clear horizon and natural vegetation, Muhammad Ali often put his characters in an indefinite environment, decorated with plants in the middle and upper registers.

Among his works, stored in the Louvre , there is a drawing with a light tint depicting a young man in a fur hat - this is one of the earliest works of Muhammad Ali, representing a copy of the Girl in a Fur Cap stored at the Hermitage from Riza-yi-Abbasi , St. Petersburg. By the way, the famous Hermitage work of Riza yi Abbasi is sometimes called not a “Girl in a fur hat”, but a “Young man in a fur hat”. How exactly did a Russian researcher Z.N. Vorozheykina - the gender of the poetic image in Persian culture does not matter: "The object of worship is an idol - in poetry it is often impersonal, which is also promoted by the very nature of the Persian language, which does not have a grammatically expressed category of the gender."

One of the funniest drawings by Muhammad Ali is the Monkey on the Bear from the Hermitage collection, St. Petersburg. This theme in XVII century Persian painting has several variants of the image. A similar plot was drawn by Riza-yi-Abbasi , and Mouin Musavvir , for example, portrayed a monkey riding a lion with a spear and in a dervish cap. However, the symbolism of this image is still unclear.

• A. T. Adamova. Persian painting and drawing of the 15th — 19th centuries in the Hermitage collection. Catalog of the exhibition. St. Petersburg 1996.