Art, Space and Mobility in Early Ages of Globalization:
The Mediterranean, Central Asia and the Indian Subcontinent (MeCAIS) 400-1650
TIMURID "KITABKHANA" WORKSHOP
by Sussan Babaie
Visiting professor
Institute for Art History, Ludwig-Maximilian University Munich
Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut
February 10 – 11, 2012
organized by Hannah Baader, Avinoam Shalem and Gerhard Wolf
Timurid Samarqand is the stuff of legend: in Persian poetry, it is pictured as the desired destination for the learned and the lover; to Babur, the founder of the Mughal dynasty, it was the ancestral home of his South Asian empire; to the merchants networking as far afield as Venice and Peking, it was the marketplace where they met at the intersection of the legendary silk roads. In anticipation of the scheduled visit in March 2012 to Samarqand, this workshop considers some of the salient features of the arts and architecture of the Timurids (1370-1509). Timur/Tamerlane (r 1370-1405) founded an empire encompassing a vast region of West, Central and South Asia, and a plethora of ethnicities, religions and languages. To the Timurid elite, who was Turko-Mongol in ethnicity and languages, Persian was the 'lingua franca', the thread that created a Persianate cultural landscape across the entire empire and established a legacy shared by the Ottomans, the Safavids and the Mughals. Our readings and discussions for this workshop will consider Timurid monuments in modern Uzbekistan through the lens of this vast cultural zone anchored on a network of princely "kitabkhana" and the imperial patronage of architecture. Specific buildings, urban ensembles, books and paintings and dishes and tent fittings; these undergird our forays into questions of commerce, competition, and empire. The workshop aims to intimate something of the texture of life of the artists, poets, architects and princely patrons who interacted on imperial book and building projects through the conceptual, and real, space of the "kitabkhana".
PROGRAM
Friday, February 10, 2012
10.00 – 12.00 h
Morning session
Timur and the Timurids
Readings: on gift exchange and embassies; on Samarqand
12.00 – 13.30 h
Lunch break
13.30 – 15.30 h
Afternoon session
Timurid architecture in Samarqand, Herat and Mashhad
Readings: on selected buildings, architects, patrons
18:00 h
Evening lecture
The Timurid kitabkhana (library/atelier/scriptorium/workshop)
Readings: on court milieu, painting, patronage and the role of the artist
Saturday, February 11, 2012:
10.00 – 12.00 h
Morning session
Discussions
FURTHER INFORMATION
http://www.khi.fi.it/en/aktuelles/veranstaltungen/veranstaltungen/veranstaltung355/index.html
CONTACT
Mirela Ljevakovic
E-mail: mirela.ljevakovickhi.fi.it
Quellennachweis:
CONF: Timurid "kitabkhana" (Florence, 10-11 Feb 2012). In: ArtHist.net, 31.01.2012. Letzter Zugriff 28.03.2024. <https://arthist.net/archive/2644>.