The Disciple's New Poem

Beneath a carved canopy, where the golden sunset of the background stands in place of the sky, two figures meet: a mature master, leaning slightly forward the better to hear, and his young disciple — who holds a sheet, and the lines, read aloud for the first time, still tremble in his voice, between awe and the hope of approval. Behind them is not one garden but two ages of one and the same path: on the left, a young tree in its first spring bloom; on the right, a mighty plane tree in its autumn attire — youth and maturity, growing from a single soil. At their feet, in the courtyard, disciples are seating themselves around an octagonal hauz: one plucks the strings of a tanbur, another holds his own sheet, awaiting his turn to be heard, and across the stones of the courtyard drafts have already been cast aside — not yet having found their form, not yet acknowledged. The fountain plays without ceasing — inspiration here does not flow past but rises again and again, as long as the lesson lasts. Above, in a quiet window of another wing, two girls have bent over a book — the same thirst for knowledge, only without witnesses, apart from the common circle. Ten months went into this golden garden, where even autumn does not cool the conversation, because what is passed on here is not information but the very fire itself. About the work The subject is devoted to the ustoz-shogird tradition — the institution of mentorship on which the transmission of poetic and spiritual knowledge in Persian and Central Asian culture rested for centuries: the master did not merely teach the craft of verse but brought up the disciple as a whole. Such scenes of a literary gathering were one of the favourite subjects of the court miniature of Maverannahr of the 16th–17th centuries, which placed poetry in a garden, by the water, beneath the shade of trees. The unbroken golden background in place of the sky is a device by which the master lends the scene a special solemnity and timelessness. The finest mosaic on the façade of the building and the restrained grey-blue ebru border complete the image of a house where not only knowledge but also taste is cultivated. 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