The Poetry of Love

Under an almond tree strewn with rose-coloured blossom two figures are seated. A maiden in a white veil, with an adorned brow-band, holds an open book and reads verses; a youth in a turban has bent toward her, holding still with a bowl in his hand. He does not drink — he listens, and all his attention is in that inclination. Between them, on the rug, stands a vessel with a narrow neck, and below, on a striped cloth, are set out a vessel, bowls, and a dish of fruit — an unhurriedness in which there is nothing superfluous. The almond blossoms first, before the leaves — and so in Eastern poetry it is an image of youth and awakening, of that springtime of the soul when feeling is only unfolding and does not yet know withering. The crown of the tree has bent over the lovers, sheltering them like a world apart: their season is in its very flowering. Behind the tenderness of the scene lies a second meaning as well. In the Sufi tradition earthly love — ishq majazi — is not opposed to the heavenly, but serves as a bridge to it: the heart that has learned to love the creation prepares to love the Creator. Hence the wine in the vessel and the cup in the youth's hand are not about feasting here. This is the intoxication of being in love — that drunkenness which carries a person beyond the bounds of reason and proves to be the first, still dim foretaste of the intoxication of the Divine. And the verses the maiden reads are the very poetry of love, which through the beauty of the word joins two souls and points them to a road above themselves. The earthly is not abolished here, but shines through and through. This work took six months. About the work The work continues the tradition of the Bukhara miniature of the 16th–17th centuries with its legacy of the Herat circle: an intimate paired scene in a garden, a dense palette, the fine working of blossoming branches and fabrics, a gilded ground. The subject of lovers at the reading of verses is one of the enduring motifs of Perso-Turkic book painting, where courtly lyric and mystical allegory always went hand in hand. Behind their outward gallantry such scenes carried the idea of ascent from earthly love to true love — a theme close to the poetry of Jami and Rumi. The blossoming tree, the wine, and the poetry come together here into a single image of the 'springtime of the heart', in which the beautiful serves as a mirror of the Divine. 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