Scientific Journal of Motaleate-e Tatbighi-e Honar

The Qajar paintings can be categorized into two main periods: the first period, initiated at the beginning of the reign of Fath-Ali Shah and continued until the reign of Naser al-din Shah. It focuses on the combination of ornamental and Persian painting forms with the achievements of naturalist art such as perspective principle and its important feature is the total domination of Persian art. In the second period, initiated from the reign of Naser al-din Shah and the arrival of those artists who had been trained in Europe, the painting is based on the representation of the naturalist art of the west and its main feature is an attempt to exactly imitate the principles of atmospheric perspective. The “Emad Al-Kottab” Shahnameh is a product of the second period; although it belongs to the Mozaffar Al-din Shah period as the last handwritten and illustrated version of Shahnameh, it reflects faithfully the pictorial traditions of the first half of Qajar period. The question here is what Qajar school’s paintings of Emad-Al-Kottab Shahnameh are based on? The present research is aimed at comparing illustrations at Emad-Al-Kottab Shahnameh with components of the first and second Qajar painting schools. To do so, and after remarking Qajar painting elements, five Persian paintings from Emad-Al-Kottab Ahahnameh are selected and investigated through a descriptive-analytic methodology. Two illustrations are first delineated, then, three paintings of Emad-Al-Kottab Shahnameh are compared with their counterparts at other Qajar Shahnameh, including Davari Shahnameh. As the investigations show that although Emad-Al-Kottab illustrations are created through the second half of Qajar reign, elements such as faces with no individuality, the dominance of ornamental elements, use of clear warm colors, and simple landscapes reveal influences of the first Qajar school. A comparison of Emad-Al-Kottab illustrations with those of Davari Shahnameh, which was created right before Emad-Al-Kottab, rejects any other reasoning, including the influence of taste of that time and the impossibility of the entrance of western art techniques into the book’s illustration.