The Impact of Sino-Iranian Relations on the Timurid Illustration Style

 
Iran and China, as two territories boasting of a great and rich art and cultural background, have always been the most influential among the world countries throughout the history. The historical background, identity and nobility have been their commonality and during their long historical path, the inhabitants of the two geographical boundaries have sometimes experienced close and profound interactions.
The era of the influential Sino-Iranian interactions was concurrent with the development of the most important and one of the most magnificent styles of Persian illustration, i.e. Herat School. Herat School is the sum total of the arts and cultural values of the preceding schools of Bagdad, Tabriz and Shiraz. Nurtured within the aforementioned schools, the Herat School became the antecedent of Tabriz II School resulting in efflorescence of art and the formation, emergence and stability of Safavid art of Isfahan School.
The share of Chinese illustration styles on the Illustration techniques of the Timurid era is still shrouded in mystery and its technical and historical dimensions, details and stylistics has to be precisely surveyed. On the other hand, the analysis of the arts, cultural and historical circumstances of the Timurid era related to China, contributes to the clarification of the extent and way in which the artists welcomed the Chinese illustration techniques.
The Ming dynasty (1368-1644) was heir to great, important eras of Tang (618-906), Song (960-1279), Yuan (1260-1368) dynasties.
This era, coincident with the rule of the Timurids in Iran, is known as the victorious return to the national sovereignty in China. Relations on the western Chinese borders were very friendly to which the exchange of ambassadors and political delegations testified.
The kinship and historical affinities of the two cultures in the areas of history, literature and religion (Islam) in China and Iran - Ming dynasty of China and the Timurids of Iran - developed relations that can be explored using the available resources. Moreover, such relations have been well reflected in the artworks of the two countries.
The geographical scope and time span of the research encompass Iran during the Timurid period (1507-1370 AD), and the Ming period in China, but in order to observe the approximate synchronicity , the beginning of the Ming era (1368) to the end of the tenth Ming Emperor Hong Ji (1505) has been selected for study.
The year 1505 is approximately concurrent with the end of the Timurid period and the beginning of Safavid rule in Iran. Comprehensive and methodological examination of graphical relations of the two regions – Iran and China –in a specific time span contributes to the more profound and precise recognition of the visual arts and their historical root. Besides, it helps clarify the process of evolution of the visual culture in the light of historical communications.
The paper mainly intends to make a comparative study of the illustration styles in a part of the immediate history of Iran and China - the Timurid Iran and part of the Ming period in China. Such goal may be achieved through studying the historical factors influencing the mutual interactions to be followed by analyzing the works of illustration in both the cultures. The research is theoretical in terms of objective and descriptive-comparative in terms of method.
The study first deals with the general research guidelines including the research literature. Then it continues to review historical documents of Iran and China to find the historical roots and causes of communication and interaction. In general, the research data is presented in two forms: a) historical data gathered through the study of valid historical as well as written, visual and electronic sources. In this section, the principal method of research is descriptive-historical; b) historical data which, based on their sources, are categorized as images and are gathered through library or electronic sources. Such visual data are studied using a comparative approach and their splitting them to bits and pieces help discover their visual structure and consequently, their comparative meanings.
The information required to conduct this study has been mostly collected through desk study of library sources such as books, treaties, dissertations, research papers, essays, visual and electronic data related to the illustrations of Timurid Iran, as well those of the Chinese Ming era and surveying the relationships between them.
Due to the "problem-oriented" nature of this research, the images have been selected based on their visual features and content.  When taking a visual-orientation approach, the images are selected based on their visual structure whereas when content is considered, ‘concept’ is the basis of selection.
 
The present research seeks to find answers to the following questions. How were the relations of Iran of Timurid era with China of the Ming rule? In this possible interaction, how was Iran’s visual culture affected by its Chinese counterpart? What are the common signs and symbols in the selected samples?
Due to the problem-oriented nature of the research, those prominent artists have been chosen for the purpose of this study who are representative of their own viewpoint and school of thought and their works are considered as documents testifying to the existing relationship between the illustrations styles of Iran and China during the aforementioned period.
The paper comes to this conclusion that despite the existing official relationship between Iran and China since the Parthian period in Iran, concurrent with the reign of Western Han in China, the Chinese visual arts have influenced the Iranian illustration styles to the end of Timurid’s period in Iran (concurrent with the rule of Ming dynasty in China). From among those Timurid period samples studied, the most influential contribution was from Tang, northern Song and Ming eras.