The system of perspective is erroneous; but neither example nor argument can alter the views of a Persian artist on this subject. Leaving aside the wonderful blending of colors in native carpets, tapestries, and embroideries, all of which improve by the toning influence of age, the modern Persian colorist is remarkable for his skill in the constant use of numerous gaudy and incongruous colors, yet making one harmonious and effective whole, which surprises us by its daring, but compels our reluctant admiration.
Persian pictorial art is original, and it is cheap; the wages of a clever artist are about one shilling and sixpence a day. In fact, he is a mere day-laborer, and his terms are, so many days' pay for a certain picture. In this pernicious system of time-work lies the cause of the scamping of many really ingenious pieces of work.
As a copyist the Persian is unrivalled; he has a more than Chinese accuracy of reproduction; every copy is a fac-simile of its original, the detail being scamped, or the reverse, according to the scale of payment. In unoriginal work, such as the multiplication of some popular design, a man will pass a lifetime, because he finds it pay better to do this than to originate. This kind of unoriginal decoration is most frequent in the painted mirror cases and book-covers, the designs of which are ancient; and the painter merely reproduces the successful and popular work of some old and forgotten master.
But where the Persian artist shines is in his readiness to undertake any style or subject; geometrical patterns—and they are very clever in originating these; scroll-work scenes from the poets; likenesses, miniatures, paintings of flowers or birds; in any media, on any substance, oils, water, or enamel, and painting on porcelain; all are produced with rapidity, wonderful spirit, and striking originality. In landscape, the Persian is very weak; and his attempts at presenting the nude, of which he is particularly fond, are mostly beneath contempt. A street scene will be painted in oils and varnished to order “in a week” on a canvas a yard square, the details of the painting desired being furnished in conversation. While the patron is speaking, the artist rapidly makes an outline sketch in white paint; and any suggested alterations are made in a few seconds by the facile hand of the ustad nakosh (master-painter), a term used to distinguish the artist from the mere portrait-painter or akkas, a branch of the profession much despised by the artists, a body of men who consider their art a mechanical one, and their guild no more distinguished than those of other handicraftsmen.
A Persian artist will always prefer to reproduce rather than originate, because, as a copy will sell for the same price as an original, by multiplication more money can be earned in a certain time, than by the exercise of originality. Rarely, among the better class of artists, is anything actually out of drawing; the perspective is of course faulty, and resembles that of early specimens of Byzantine art. Such monstrosities as the making the principal personages giants, and the subsidiaries dwarfs, are common; while the beauties are represented as much bejewelled; but this is done to please the buyer's taste, and the artist knows its absurdity. There is often considerable weakness as to the rendering of the extremities; but as the Persian artist never draws, save in portraiture, from the life, this is not to be wondered at.
The writer has before him a fair instance of the native artist's rendering of the scene at the administration of the bastinado. This picture is an original painting in oils, twenty-four inches by sixteen on papier-mâché. The details were given to the artist by the writer in conversation, sketched by him in white paint on the papier mâché during the giving of the order, in the course of half an hour; and the finished picture was completed, varnished, and delivered in a week. The price paid for this original work in oils in 1880 was seven shillings and sixpence. The costumes are quite accurate in the minutest detail; the many and staring colors employed are such as are in actual use; while the general mise en scène is very correct.
Many similar oil-paintings were executed for the writer by Persian artists, giving graphic renderings of the manners and customs of this little-known country. They were always equally spirited, and minutely correct as to costume and detail, at the same low price; a small present for an extraordinarily successful performance gladdening the heart of the artist beyond his expectations.
As to original work by Persian artists in water-color, remuneration is the same—so much per diem. A series of water-colors giving minute details of Persian life were wished; and a clever artist was found as anxious to proceed as the writer was to obtain the sketches. The commission was given, and the subjects desired carefully indicated to the artist, who, by a rapid outline sketch in pencil, showed his intelligence and grasp of the subject. The writer, delighted at the thought of securing a correct and permanent record of the manners and customs of a little-known people, congratulated himself. But, alas! he counted his chickens before hatching; for the artist, on coming with his next water-color, demanded, and received, a double wage. A similar result followed the finishing of each drawing; and though the first only cost three shillings, and the second six, the writer was reluctantly compelled to stop his commissions, after paying four times the price of the first for his third water-color, on the artist demanding twenty-four shillings for a fourth—not that the work was more, but as he found himself appreciated, the wily painter kept to arithmetical progression as his scale of charge; a very simple principle, which all artists must devoutly wish they could insist on.
For a reduced copy of a rather celebrated painting, of which the figures were life-size, of what might be called, comparatively speaking, a Persian old master—for this reduction, in oils, fourteen inches by eight, and fairly well done, the charge was a sovereign. The piece was painted on a panel. The subject is a royal banqueting scene in Ispahan—the date a century and a half ago. The dresses are those of the time—the ancient court costume of Persia. The king in a brocaded robe is represented seated on a carpet at the head of a room, his drinking-cup in his hand; while his courtiers are squatted in two rows at the sides of the room, and are also carousing. Minstrels and singers occupy the foreground of the picture; and a row of handsome dancing-girls form the central group. All the figures are portraits of historical personages; and, in the copy, the likenesses are faithfully retained.
The palaces of Ispahan are decorated with large oil paintings by the most eminent Persian artists of their day. All are life-size, and none are devoid of merit. Some are very clever, particularly the likenesses of Futteh Ali Shah and his sons, several of whom were strikingly like their father. As Futteh Ali Shah had an acknowledged family of seventy-two, this latter fact is curious. These paintings are without frames, spaces having been made in the walls to receive them. The Virgin Mary is frequently represented in these mural paintings; also a Mr. Strachey, a young diplomate who accompanied the English mission to Persia in the reign of our Queen Elizabeth, is still admired as a type of adolescent beauty. He is represented with auburn hair in the correct costume of the period; and copies of his portrait are still often painted on the pen-cases of amateurs. These pen-cases, or kalamdans, are the principal occupation of the miniature-painter. As one-fourth of the male population of Persia can write, and as each man has one or more pen-cases, the artist finds a constant market for his wares in their adornment. The pen-case is a box of papier-mâché eight inches long, an inch and a half broad, and the same deep. Some of them, painted by artists of renown, are of great value, forty pounds being a common price to pay for such a work of art by a rich amateur. Several fine specimens may be seen in the Persian Collection at the South Kensington Museum. It is possible to spend a year's hard work on the miniatures painted on a pen-case. These are very minute and beautiful. The writer possesses a pen-case, painted during the lifetime of Futteh Ali Shah, a king of Persia who reigned long and well. All the faces—none more than a quarter of an inch in diameter—are likenesses; and the long black beard of the king reaching to his waist, is not exaggerated, for such beards are common in Persia.