- Source: Farangi-Sazi
Farangi-Sazi (Persian: فرنگیسازی, lit. 'making in an Occidental manner') was a style of Persian painting that originated in Safavid Iran in the second half of the 17th century. This style of painting emerged during the reign of Shah Abbas II (r. 1642–1666), but first became prominent under Shah Solayman I (r. 1666–1694).
Farangi-sazi paintings depicted many types of different scenarios, varying from traditional Iranian scenes, such as portrayal of kings and aristocrats, to European depictions, sceneries, biblical, and mythological events.
Only a few 17th-century artists made paintings in the style of Farangi-sazi, the most prominent ones being Aliqoli Jebadar and Mohammad Zaman.
The term & characteristics
Note: "Saz" refers to the artists and "sazi" their works.
The term "Farangi-sazi" as used today seems to have developed in the early 20th century. Specific to late Safavid painting & its derivatives, it excludes the work of later European-trained painters like Sani and Kamal ol-Molk.
The 17th century artist Jani sometimes signed his paintings "Farangi saz", but no other contemporary use of the term is known.
Per Negar Habibi, "farangi-sazi" requires more than a "discreet use of a European technique, a mere presence of chiaroscuro or perspective... The Occidentalist character of some late 17th-century Persian paintings is borne out by the presence of European cultural elements, not in an exhaustive or scientific way, but rather in order to capture some evocative traits and fantasies.”
= Characteristics
=Innovations associated with farangi sazi include the following:
The use of perspective to indicate depth
The importance given to landscape
Chiaroscuro
The use of watercolor and stippling
These innovations do not strictly follow European conventions. The direction of lighting is often unclear except in candlelit night scenes, and its exposure is often inconsistent.
The use of stippling may have been inspired by paintings on imported enamel objects (watches). See right:
Artists
= Muhammad Zaman ibn Haji Yusuf Qumi
=Source:
Muhammad Zaman seems to have been active between 1649 and 1704. He died sometime before 1720-21. Very little is known about his life aside from his (and his pupils') inscriptions.The story that he studied in Rome, converted to Christianity, and fled to India has been rejected by Anatoly Ivanov and others.
He is best known for his narrative illustrations for the Khamsa of Nizami and the Shahnameh as well as his variants on European prints.
He is often associated with the signature "ya sahib al-zaman", but he wasn't the only one to have used it.Family
His lesser-known brother Haji Muhammad and sons Muhammad Ali & Muhammad Yusuf were also artists.
Haji Muhammad produced some surviving lacquer paintings. He may have worked with his brother on a privately commissioned Khamsa in the Morgan Library; however, this attribution has been disputed.
= Aliquli Jabbadar
=The name Jabbadar suggests he was a steward of the Royal Armoury (Jebakhana).
He is speculated to have been of Georgian or Albanian origin based on details in his inscriptions.
Close copies of European prints are rare. Instead, his derivative works are often composites of elements taken from multiple sources. Per Habibi, his work is characterized by bright colors, a rejection of outline, and an avoidance of heavy contrasts.
He also produced group portraits recording court ceremony & activities. Several are in the St. Petersburg Muraqqa.
History and context
= Background
=After Tahmasp's kitabkhana closed in 1555, miniature production shifted towards standalone pieces, spawning new genres like single-figure portraits and the nude. These also included ghulam-i farangi, depictions of young men in European dress reflecting the growing European presence in Abbas I's reign.
European prints made an impression on local artists, occasionally leading to the borrowing of poses and motifs. Take the series below, which Stuart Cary Welch suggested was based on a Marcantonio Raimondi engraving.
European visitors often brought works of art as gifts to the Safavid court, and a few worked as artists themselves, like Philips Angel II (ca. 1653-55).
The New Julfa Armenian community also played a role in transmitting European artistic influence. A few poorly documented Armenian painters- "Marcos" and "Minas"- were producing oil-on-canvas portraits in Isfahan in the 1630s & 40s. Note similarities between the Europeanizing murals of Chehel Sotoun and some wall paintings in New Julfa; precedence uncertain.
= The style develops
=The late Safavid Europeanizing style possibly originated in building projects like Chehel Sotoun (mid-1600s), whose wall paintings were a blend of variety of artistic traditions- Persian, European, Armenian.
European paintings & prints held in the Khazana & Jebakhana may also have served as a model. Aliquli Jabbadar's name suggests he was once a steward of the Jebakhana.
= Maturity
=By the 1670s, Farangi sazi was used to depict quintessential Persian subjects: scenes from the Shahnameh & Nizami's Khamsa and contemporary court life.
The style was one of several that coexisted in the 17th century. Through Mu'in Musavvir and others, the tradition of Reza Abbasi persisted without strong European influence, while other artists like Sheikh Abbasi and his son Ali Naqi worked in an Indian-influenced mode. Still others- among them Reza Abbasi's son Muhammad Shafi- pioneered genres like the gol o morg (flower and bird), sometimes influenced by European and Mughal models. These artists took cues selectively from European & Mughal conventions, adopting a new approach to light and shadow and to landscape.
= Later developments
=The hybrid Isfahani style continued at regional centers like Shiraz after the fall of the Safavid state. Painters active in the style included Muhammad-Ali ibn Muhammad Zaman and Muhammad-Ali ibn Abdu'l Naaisha's Ibn Ali-Quli Jubbadar.
The style also survived in lacquer paintings like those of 'Ali Ashraf. 'Ali Ashraf had studied under Muhammad Zaman, and his designs bring to mind his teacher's treatment of flowers, which was further developed in the early Qajar period by Muhammad Hadi. Muhammad Sadiq, another painter who sometimes worked on lacquer, is also known for miniatures in the Europeanizing manner and for oil paintings in the Negarestan. Some credit to him the genre of portraiture that would define early Qajar court art decades later.
Album production reflected this continued interest in foreign styles. In the Afsharid-era St. Petersburg Muraqqa, freshly looted Mughal and Deccan miniatures (some of them Europeanizing) were placed alongside European prints and Safavid Farangi-sazi and framed with lavish decorative borders. Muhammad Baqir was one of the artists who worked on these borders; his floral decorations in the Europeanized Indo-Persian style are especially striking. Muhammad Baqir's work also included copies of European prints, copies of older Farangi-sazi, and oil-on-canvas portraits.
= Precedents
=The Diez and Fatih Albums contain a few 14th/15th century Jalayirid or Timurid pieces inscribed as "kar-i-farang", possibly based on medieval French or Iberian models.
The farangi manner's reputation for naturalism persisted through the Timurid era. The late Timurid poetAlisher Nava'i listed mastery of "farangi" and "khata'i" styles as skills one could expect from an illuminator. Although these terms were well established in the early 15th century, their use was often imprecise and their styles confused.
European folios from the mid-16th century Bahram Mirza album (Topkapi H. 2154), compiled in Safavid Tabriz, provide another glimpse into the reception of Western European art before the 17th century.
= The Indian connection
=European artistic influences may also have arrived by way of Mughal and Deccan India.
The styles of Bahram Sofrakesh and Shaykh Abbasi reflect this influence explicitly, and Aliquli Jabbadar may have produced copies of early 17th century Mughal paintings.
Indian influence also contributed to the maturation of the gol-o-morg genre in the mid-17th century under painters like Shafi Abbasi. Related was a new genre of floral studies which took cues from Mughal European-influenced models.
Decades later, the campaigns of Nader Shah brought many looted Mughal and Deccan miniatures to Iran, where they were installed in muraqqas like the Davis and St. Petersburg Albums. Some miniatures may have been overpainted in Iran in the Persian Europeanizing style.
Gallery
= Muhammad Zaman & Aliquli Jabbadar
== Continuity and later developments
=Qajar legacy
= Single-flower studies; flower & bird
=Single-flower studies:
See also: https://www.flickr.com/photos/persianpainting/16242329754
= Miscellaneous
=Muhammad Zaman's 17.7 × 24.9 cm version from 1684/85 in the St. Petersburg Muraqqa is not shown. Link in footnote
The added top-left cloud can also be seen in Zaman's version.
Footnotes
References
Sources
Botchkareva, Anastasia A. “Topographies of Taste: Aesthetic Practice in 18th-Century Persianate Albums,” Issue 6 Albums (Fall 2018), https://www.journal18.org/3245. DOI: 10.30610/6.2018.7
Diba, Layla. "Persian Painting in the Eighteenth Century: Tradition and Transmission." In Muqarnas, 1989. https://www.academia.edu/33526034/Persian_Painting_in_the_Eighteenth_Century_Tradition_and_Transmission
Habibi, Negar (2021). "Farangi-Sazi". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica, Online Edition. Encyclopædia Iranica Foundation.
Habibi, Negar. “ʿAli Quli Jibadar and the St Petersburg Muraqqa': Documenting the Royal Life?". Proceedings of the Eighth European Conference of Iranian Studies, 2020.
Habibi, Negar. “The Making of New Art: From the Khazana to Its Audience at the Court of Shah Soleyman.” Safavid Persia in the Age of Empires, 2021. doi:10.5040/9780755633814.CH-018.
Landau, Amy S. “From Poet to Painter: Allegory and Metaphor in a Seventeenth-Century Persian Painting by Muhammad Zaman, Master of Farangi-Sazi." Muqarnas 28 (2011): 101–31. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23350285.
Langer, Axel. "European Influences on Seventeenth-Century Persian Painting: Of Handsome Europeans, Naked Ladies, and Parisian Timepieces." In The Fascination of Persia: Persian-European Dialogue in Seventeenth-Century Art & and Contemporary Art of Teheran, edited by Axel Langer. Zürich: Scheidegger & Spiess, 2013.
Necipoğlu, Gülru. "Persianate Images between Europe and China: The ‘Frankish Manner'." In The Diez Albums: Contexts and Contents. Leiden: Brill, 2016.
Further reading
Habibi, Negar (2017). "ʿAli Qoli Jebādār et l'enregistrement du réel dans les peintures dites farangi sāzi". Der Islam (in French). 94 (1): 192–219. doi:10.1515/islam-2017-0008.
Habibi, Negar (2018). ʿAli Qoli Jebādār et l'Occidentalisme Safavide: Une étude sur les peintures dites farangi sāzi, leurs milieux et commanditaires sous Shāh Soleimān (1666-94) (in French). Brill. pp. 1–157. doi:10.1163/9789004356139. ISBN 978-90-04-35613-9.
Landau, Amy S. (2011). "From Poet to Painter: Allegory and Metaphor in a Seventeenth-Century Persian Painting by Muhammad Zaman, Master of Farangī-Sāzī". Muqarnas Online. 28 (1): 101–131. doi:10.1163/22118993-90000175.
Melville, Charles, ed. (2021). Safavid Persia in the Age of Empires: The Idea of Iran Vol. 10. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-0755633777.
