Aqa Mirak (

fl. ''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...

1520 –

Qazvin Qazvin (; fa, قزوین, , also Romanized as ''Qazvīn'', ''Qazwin'', ''Kazvin'', ''Kasvin'', ''Caspin'', ''Casbin'', ''Casbeen'', or ''Ghazvin'') is the largest city and capital of the Province of Qazvin in Iran. Qazvin was a capital of the ...

, 1576) was a

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

illustrator and

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

Life

Aqa Mirak was a painter, purveyor and companion to the

Safavid Safavid Iran or Safavid Persia (), also referred to as the Safavid Empire, '. was one of the greatest Iranian empires after the 7th-century Muslim conquest of Persia, which was ruled from 1501 to 1736 by the Safavid dynasty. It is often conside ...

shah Shah (; fa, شاه, , ) is a royal title that was historically used by the leading figures of Iranian monarchies.Yarshater, EhsaPersia or Iran, Persian or Farsi, ''Iranian Studies'', vol. XXII no. 1 (1989) It was also used by a variety of ...

Tahmasp I Tahmasp I ( fa, طهماسب, translit=Ṭahmāsb or ; 22 February 1514 – 14 May 1576) was the second shah of Safavid Iran from 1524 to 1576. He was the eldest son of Ismail I and his principal consort, Tajlu Khanum. Ascending the throne after t ...

and was well known in contemporary circles. Initially living in

Tabriz Tabriz ( fa, تبریز ; ) is a city in northwestern Iran, serving as the capital of East Azerbaijan Province. It is the List of largest cities of Iran, sixth-most-populous city in Iran. In the Quri Chay, Quru River valley in Iran's historic Aze ...

, he traveled and lived in

Mashhad Mashhad ( fa, مشهد, Mašhad ), also spelled Mashad, is the List of Iranian cities by population, second-most-populous city in Iran, located in the relatively remote north-east of the country about from Tehran. It serves as the capital of R ...

between 1555 and 1565, and

from 1565 until his death.

Works

The contemporary chronicler

Dust Muhammad Dust Muhammad (or Doust Muhammad) was a Persian painter of miniatures, calligrapher, and art historian, active from about 1510 to 1564. Later in life he worked in India. Early career Dust Muhammad was born in Herat in the late 15th century, alth ...

mentioned that Aqa Mirak along with Mir Musavvir did wall paintings for Prince Sam Mirza's palace in Tabriz and illustrations for royal manuscripts including the Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp, a superb copy of

Ferdowsi Abul-Qâsem Ferdowsi Tusi ( fa, ; 940 – 1019/1025 CE), also Firdawsi or Ferdowsi (), was a Persians, Persian poet and the author of ''Shahnameh'' ("Book of Kings"), which is one of the world's longest epic poetry, epic poems created by a sin ...

Shahnameh The ''Shahnameh'' or ''Shahnama'' ( fa, شاهنامه, Šāhnāme, lit=The Book of Kings, ) is a long epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi between c. 977 and 1010 CE and is the national epic of Greater Iran. Consisting of some 50,00 ...

('Book of kings') and Nizami's Khamsa ('Five poems'). Qazi Ahmad wrote that Aqa Mirak "had no peer in artistic design and was an incomparable painter, very clever, enamoured of his art, a bon vivant, an intimate f the Shahand a sage". A manuscript of the Khamsa done between 1539 and 1543 has four illustrations bearing attributions to Aqa Mirak. Dickson and Welch have attributed other paintings to Aqa Mirak in the monumental copy of the Shahnama made for Tahmasp, and have used these attributions to define four periods in the artist's life.

Style

Works ascribed to a youthful period in the 1520s have tautly composed landscapes inhabited by a few large-scale figures. A transitional period in the early 1530s was followed by mature works produced from the late 1530s to c. 1555, in which the compositions are more complex and the coloring more subtle. In the view of Dickson and Welch, at the end of his life the artist returned to his youthful style in two paintings for Ibrahim Mirza's copy of Jami's

Haft Awrang ''Haft Awrang'' ( fa, هفت اورنگ, meaning "Seven Thrones") by the Persian people, Persian poet Jami is a classic of Persian literature composed some time between 1468 and 1485. Jami completed the work as seven books following a Mathnawi ...

('Seven thrones') produced between 1556 and 1565.

Gallery

File:Ağa Mirək - Məcnun səhrada.jpg , Majnun in the desert from ''

Layla and Majnun ''Layla & Majnun'' ( ar, مجنون ليلى ; Layla's Mad Lover) is an old story of Arab origin, about the 7th-century Bedouin poet Qays ibn al-Mulawwah and his ladylove Layla bint Mahdi (later known as Layla al-Aamiriya). "The Layla ...

'' (1543–44) File:Xosrovun taxta çıxması.JPG File:FOLIO FROM THE SHAHNAMEH OF SHAH TAHMASP, ATTRIBUTED TO AQA MIRAK, CIRCA 1525-35, Sotheby,s.jpg , Faridun in the guise of a dragon test his sons, from the

of Shah Tahmasp, attributed to Aqa Mirak (c. 1525–35)

References

Persian miniature painters 1576 deaths Year of birth unknown 16th-century Iranian painters 16th-century painters of Safavid Iran {{Iran-painter-stub