The Tale of Sheikh San'an

By a stream, beneath a tree ablaze with early spring blossom, two meet. To the right — Sheikh San'an: a blue robe, a turban and a staff reveal in him a man whose life had once been a measure of piety; but now his body is bowed, his gaze dares not meet the gaze of the woman before him directly. Before him — a woman in garments the colour of flame, on her head a headdress with a feather; in her hands she holds a book, as though it kept that for which he has no name. Between them — a narrow strip of water: not a barrier, but a line that can no longer be undone once one has stepped across it. The tree above them blossoms not serenely but achingly — this is not spring as a promise, but spring as a rupture, the instant when the former shape crumbles away before it has become clear what it will turn into. The legend behind this meeting is one of the most fearless subjects of the Sufi tradition: a venerable sheikh, with dozens of pilgrimages and hundreds of disciples behind him, will for this love accept the girdle of another, wine and the most humiliating servitude, because the true path to God begins not with the preservation of the self but with its destruction. The staff in the sheikh's hand is the only thing left of his former rank: humility has already entered the body, while status is still in the hand. Six months went into this scene, where every petal is painted separately, just as in this parable every step of the fall that became an ascent is set down separately. About the work The subject goes back to the poem of Farid ad-Din Attar, 'Mantiq at-Tayr' ('The Conference of the Birds'), where the parable of Sheikh San'an is told by the hoopoe as a lesson for those who seek the Simurgh: the path of purification passes not only through asceticism, but also through the readiness to lose oneself entirely. Romantic-mystical subjects of this kind were beloved by the masters of the court miniature of Maverannahr of the 16th–17th centuries, who were drawn to scenes in which earthly passion reads at the same time as an allegory of the Path. This meeting Davlat Toshev resolves in an emphatically intimate key — without retinue or adornment, only the two of them, the tree and the water — leaving all the viewer's attention on the very moment of the turning point. The golden ochre ground and the ringing blue of the sky are characteristic of the finest examples of the school; the marbled ebru frame completes the sense of the whirlwind into which the figures are drawn. 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