Bolshakov O. The St. Petersburg Manuscript of the “Maqāmāt” by al-Ḥarīrī and Its Place in the History of Arab Painting // Manuscripta Orientalia. Vol. 3. No. 4. December 1997. P. 59—66.
Medieval Arab book miniatures have received significantly less study than their Iranian counterparts. This is due both to their brief history (from the end of the twelfth to the middle of the fourteenth century) and to the relatively small number of surviving illustrated manuscripts. Only a single work of Arab literature has reached us in a significant quantity of illustrated manuscripts. This work, however, allows us to trace the development of style and depictive technique on the basis of uniform subject material — the Maqamat of al-Hariri. These illustrations, which make up more than half of the Arab miniatures which have reached us, represent at the same time the overwhelming majority of genre scenes.
Despite the long-standing and deserved attention they have received, no more than one hundred illustrations to the Maqamat have been published (of the more than seven hundred), mainly in black-and-white reproductions. Aside from mentions in general works on the history of the arts, few special studies have appeared, all reviewing individual aspects of the illustrations.
The first, and thus far only study which covers the entirety of illustrations in the Maqamat is O. Grabar’s monograph. It appeared in 1984 and contains in an appendix microfiches of 732 miniatures from 12 manuscripts, which allows those unable to consult the manuscripts de visu better to acquaint themselves with the material. The study by O. Grabar treats a number of historical issues raised by the depictive language of the Maqamat’s illustrators and the interrelation of various manuscripts...
PDF-файлы
