A comparative study of the relationship between text and image In the picture of the Ascension of the Holy Prophet from Tahmasebi’s Khamseh and Jami’s Haft Awrang

Written works left by the predecessors constitute the civilizational, intellectual and cultural heritage of a nation. Simultaneously, language and literature constitute the important content of the written heritage that transmit the opinion and artistic ideas of the past to contemporary generations. The Persian literature has been manifested in many periods of history as narrative mode in the form of drawing and visual expression. These kinds of ac complishments go beyond informing the scholars of the richness of the literature, but also indicate the mystical, philosophical, religious and even political views of the specific period of history. Accordingly, the authors of this paper tried to answer these questions: what methods and skills were used by the painters for keeping the integrity of text and image in the portrayals of the “Ascension of the Prophet Muhammad” )PBUH( in these two versions, Tahmasebi’s Khamseh and Jami’s Haft Awrang?; what are the commonalities and differences between the portray of the Ascension of the Holy Prophet )PBUH( in the two mentioned books? The methodology of this research is descriptive-analytical, in addition to a comparative approach. The data was collected by searching library resources and observing the works. The statistical population includes a duplicate of the scene of the Ascension of the Holy Prophet )PBUH( taken from Khamseh and the Haft Awrang, which were analyzed through qualitative and also deductive reasoning. In the study, the visual features such as design, color, structure, details and elements of the image, and the quality of designing the scenes have been considered. Although the results show a high degree of effort of court commissioners and painters spent to be loyal to the poets’ poems, but in some details and scenes some interventions, changes and transformations can be perceived, which are mainly rooted in the creative efforts of artists and also following the Safavid style of painting, that emphasized on the luxurious, ornate and eye-catching atmospheres. In both portrayals, the integrity of the image and the text is of interest to the painter, but Khamseh Nezami’s painting has a more complete adaptation to the poems and the Ascension event, due to showing more details and more realistic spatial portraying.