Conversation

The sheet is built as several conversations at once, and no one of them resembles another. On a golden hexagonal throne sits a young ruler; before him, leaning forward, a guest is speaking — his speech is not yet finished, and so a kneeling servant holds a covered tray at the ready, not daring to interrupt with a word what can be expressed by patient waiting alone. To one side, beneath an apple tree laden with ripe fruit, a conversation of another kind is under way — without a single sound: a grey-bearded mentor, his palms folded at his chest, leads a young disciple into muraqaba, silent contemplation with the heart. The festivity clamours quite nearby, yet their seclusion is not disturbed by the crowd — that very 'solitude within the crowd' of which the first Naqshbandi teachers spoke. Higher up, beyond a portal with turquoise girih, in the cells of a madrasa study and mentorship go on at the same time: one reads from a book on a stand, another listens to an elder. Below, by a large cauldron, a cook and his helper prepare the repast, while servants already carry the first dishes to the table. Each level of the sheet is its own form of colloquy: by word, by silence, by gaze, by service itself. This garden of dozens of figures took five months of labour with a single-hair brush — and it is clear that the master painted not a crowd but conversation itself, only sounding in different tongues. About the work The work continues the tradition of Maverannahr court miniature of the 16th–17th centuries, in which a multi-figure scene serves not so much as an illustration of a particular episode as a map of the simultaneous life of a whole community — from throne to kitchen. Bukhara of this period was one of the chief centres of the Naqshbandi tariqa, and the motif of colloquy (suhbat), running through the sheet on every level, points precisely to this tradition. The architectural framing — a portal with girih ornament, the tiered cells of a madrasa — is characteristic of the court workshops of the region and underscores the bond of the spiritual and scholarly with the everyday order of life. The miniature is executed by the contemporary master Davlat Toshev, whose work is closely bound to the Sufi tradition of Maverannahr. Details Base: Natural handmade Bukhara silk paper (90% silk, 10% cotton) Technique: Tempera, watercolour, natural plant and mineral pigments, gold leaf (23 carat) Unique piece