The Study of Material Folklore (Type of Clothing) in Characterization: The Illustrated Case of Khavaran-Nameh

Abstract

The epic of Khavaran-Nameh, composed by Ibn Hessam Khosfi, is a unique work in the field of literature and painting in the Turkmen era in the 15th century. It is one of the best-known Shi'at books composed in Masnavi style and has been a novelty in Iran’s history of literature and art bearing both epic and religious genres. The first illustrated manuscript of Khavaran-Nameh belongs to the painting school of Shiraz-Turkmen. Along with its literary texts, unique paintings with epic and religious themes were also created and the painter tried to convey the good and evil in different social classes, from the highest attributed to prophets and imams, to the royals, courtiers, ordinary people, and at last, underlings and sinners. The goal of this research, firstly, is studying and identifying the characters existing in the text and illustrations of Khavaran-Nameh, and secondly, it aims to compare their pattern of clothing according to the literary text of the narratives. The research questions are: what is the relationship between the text and the illustration in describing and representing different characters in the paintings and stories of Khavaran-Nameh? What similarities and differences can be observed in diverse clothing of these characters? The results of this study show that the characterizations in the text and the illustrations of Khavaran-Nameh are largely consistent. However, there are certain differences owing to various religious beliefs and artistic tastes. The difference between the text and the illustration is more distinct when the clothing pattern of characters are compared.

There are several studies in the literature concerning Khavaran-Nameh. Tazian-Nameh Parsi is the abstract of the literary text of Khavaran-Nameh (Khusfi, 2003). Butiqayeh Ghesse-haye Boland A’amiane Farsi: Romance-e A’am provides illuminating information on folk literature and supernatural creatures (2019). There are several studies on Khavaran-Nameh that analyze the illustrations, too. Two prominent instances are “Interpretation of Khavaran-Nameh's Paintings: an Iconology Approach” (Akhavani and Mahmoudi, 2018) and “Khavaran-Nameh from the Perspective of Miniature with an Emphasis on the Influential Factors on the Formation of Artwork and the Analysis of its Symbols” (Memarzadeh, 2011).

Aims, research questions, and hypotheses

This study aims to analyze different characters in the text and the illustrations of Khavaran-Nameh as well as the characters’ clothes based on their social status and rank. The questions were posed as follows: What social classes and characterizations have been used in the text and illustrations of the manuscript Khavaran-Nameh? What is the relation between the characters of the narrative and their clothes in the illustrations? It appears that the miniaturist of this manuscript has been under the influence of religious beliefs and has exaggerated some of the epic or religious aspects while disregarding some others.



Data collection

This quantitative and qualitative study was a basic-applied research with an inductive method, and the data were collected through library-based research. The population of the study included the oldest and the most exquisite manuscript of Khavaran-Nameh preserved at the Golestan Palace library in Iran (no. 7570 at the Museum of Decorative Arts). Given the limited number of illustrations in this manuscript, all of them were studied to reinforce the results of the study.

Analysis and discussion

The characters of Khavaran-Nameh were categorized into five groups in the text: social class, gender, age range, literary aspect, and supernatural creatures. In the social class category, the characters were uniform to a large extent in both literary and pictorial content, and thus, common people had not been illustrated. The male characters were uniform both in the text and the illustrations, and as a result, women were illustrated limitedly. The age ranges of characters were not clear in the text and pictures. In the illustrations of characters, the epic-religious aspects are emphasized more than the romantic. Imam Ali is the most important epic-religious character who is the main subject of miniatures. The illustrations of supernatural creatures were more detailed than the text. The type of clothes that have been illustrated in this manuscript were congruent with the customary clothes at the Turkmen period. This type was similar to the Timurids’ who ruled the eastern part of Iran contemporary to the Turkmen; all pieces including headwear, garments, and footwear were completely alike. Except for the headwear, the illustration of the clothes of religious leaders were similar to that of the kings.

The recognition of different clothes was based on the characters categories. In the social class category, religious characters, courtiers, and Pahlevans shared similar type of clothes except for the headwear. The garments of Imam Ali were the most various compared with that of the other characters from all social classes. A noteworthy point in this manuscript was that common people were not illustrated and could not be analyzed. There was no difference between the clothing of women and men; however, the number of women characters was limited. The distinction between the characters' clothes based on the age range was not clear, but the youth's clothes were different. In epic miniatures subcategory, the troops had helmets and battle equipment; however, Imam Ali was in his common clothes. In the religious subcategory, contrary to the common belief, the clothes of religious leaders were not simple and had many decorations. In the two romantic miniatures, women's clothes were simpler than men. In the category of supernatural creatures, the angels' clothes had many decorations similar to the religious characters and the only difference was having a crown and wings and no footwear. The demons had no other clothing than skirts which symbolizes their lowly existence.

References

Abbasi, S. (2019). The Rhetorics of long folk stories in Farsi: popular romance. Ruzegar.

Akhavani, S., & Mahmoudi, F. (2018). Interpretation of Khavaran-Nameh's paintings: an iconology approach. Visual Arts, 23(2), 23-34.

Khusfi, M. (2003). Persian Tazian-Nameh (translated into Farsi by Hamid Allah Moradi). Markaz-e Nashr Daneshgahi.

Memarzadeh, M. (2011). Khavaran-Nameh from the perspective of miniature with an emphasis on the influential factors on the formation of artwork and the analysis of its symbols. Khorasan Socio-Cultural Studies, 19, 162-177.

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