The Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation presents:
A Free Lecture by Dr Stefano Carboni, director of the Art Gallery of Western Australia:
From Melancholy to Euphoria and More: Visual Representation of Emotions in Persian Illustrated Manuscripts
6pm-7pm Wednesday 27 June at the University of Melbourne
The common perception about Persian miniature painting – better described as book illustration because almost invariably it has a textual, literary or oral context – is that it is elegant, colourful, rather formal in composition, and overall restrained in the way the characters are emotionally involved in a particular moment of the story. Persian illustrators, however, had a clear set of tools and visual tropes to convey feelings such as surprise, love, grief, fear, heroism in the face of death, and many more. Many of the stories told in poetic works by Firdausi, Jami and Nizami, all of which were often illustrated, are heavily charged with impossible love, death-defying trials, heroic quests, and mystic ardour: the written language, often memorized by the reader, is the protagonist while the visual image provides in some way an oasis, a respite for the eye, breaking away from the incessant emotional narrative of the verses. A great chapter for the visual representation of emotions, however, was written during the Ilkhanid (Mongol) period in Iran in the 14th century, a time during which all pictorial rules – if they previously existed – were subverted and we can witness a full range of demonstrative engagement with the viewer.
This lecture is part of the From Melancholy to Euphoria: The Materialisation of Emotion in Middle Eastern Manuscripts Symposium, made possible by support from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions and the Crescent Foundation.
Full symposium details at: http://go.unimelb.edu.au/2ct6
Free lecture. All welcome. Bookings essential. For full details and registration: http://go.unimelb.edu.au/6p56
Symposium: From Melancholy to Euphoria: The materialisation of emotion in Middle Eastern Manuscripts
Wednesday 27th & Thursday 28th June, The University of Melbourne
Presenters: Associate Professor Mandana Barkeshli, Dr Stefano Carboni (Director of Art Gallery of Western Australia), Prof Amir Zekrgoo (Professor of Islamic & Oriental Arts Department of Applied Art & Design, IIUM), and local and international experts. The program includes a Public Lecture by Dr Carboni, ‘The materialisation of emotion in Islamic illustrated manuscripts’; Persian musical performance with Timothy Johannessen; a poetry recital with Professor Amir Zekrgoo; and Sama dance with Samira Khonsari.
This symposium will examine the relationship between materiality, the textual content, and the emotional resonance that is elicited by those engaging with the texts. Taking the various manifestations of love, both religious and secular, depicted within these texts, and linking these to the great Persian stories told in text and music, this seminar will explore how a deep understanding of the text and the depiction of the stories within traverses an emotional continuum from melancholy to euphoria.
This symposium is supported by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions and the Crescent Foundation. Full symposium details and registration details at: http://go.unimelb.edu.au/2ct6
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