A Comparative Study on the Clothing of Khosrow and Shirin on the basis of Nizami Ganjavi’s Poetic Collection and the Related Images

In every culture and civilization, there is a fundamental, basic art medium on which other arts would be created. Different arts are produced for different purposes. Some could be considered as the origin, and some derived from and influenced by others. In Iran the foundation of many arts is known as poetry and this realm plays the role of the basic art in the creation of other fields and media. Among various arts, painting has a lot to do with poetry. In fact, painting is one of the art media enjoying a long-standing connection with poetry. Among the works of painting, the role of romantic stories is outstanding, of which the story of “Khosrow and Shirin” compiled by Hakim Nizami Ganjavi is one of the most famous ones. Nezami Ganjavi, the most famous poet in composing romantic stories, narrates the story of Khosrow and Shirin with mysterious elements with each word carrying different connotation to the audience. Verses in the poem of Khosrow and Shirin convey cryptic remarks, so in order to get the true meaning, they need to be carefully interpreted and analyzed, especially if a long history has passed since the creation of the work.  This paper explores the relevance and the extent of influence of the art of painting and poetry. It has extracted descriptions relating to the clothing of the main characters of the story of Khosrow and Shirin from the poetry, comparing which with the clothing of related paintings. Ultimately, by obtaining and using the results, it has been tried to answer the question: What is the influence of painting (the subordinate art) on poetry (basic art)? In this study data collecting method is documentation with the help of library sources. Furthermore, descriptive-analytical method is also applied to formulate it. It appears that the artist has illustrated the poet’s descriptions after reading the poem. In the present article, Khosrow and Shirin’s clothing is derived from what is inferred from the military system and then, by comparing the paintings of Khosrow and Shirin in the works of painting from the 8th to the 11th centuries AH (14th and 17th centuries AD), the results are presented. Here among the points of interest in the poet’s mind when describing the clothing of Khosrow and Shirin, some material of the textiles has been expressed. Such fabrics include parand (painted silk), parnyān (shot silk), diba (fine silk), fur, khārā (moire), harir (silk cloth), ghasab (fine linen cloth) and zar (gold). Yellow, red, black, purple and blue have been selected as dominant colors in here. Furthermore, for the design, some elements such as hat, qabā (long garment for men), belt, salab, shaqāyeq, turban, tarāz, me’jar (veil), scarf, burqa’ (face veil), mask; and for jewelry, other things like rings, earrings, khalkhāl (anklet), necklaces, naqshdast, amberina, bracelet, bandana and snood have been used. Examining 14 images of the golden styles of Iranian painting proves that the effect taken by the painter from the text has been more evident in the color of clothing.