Synthesis of the Precious Literary Text and Visual Image: An Intermedial and Iconological Analysis of the Miniatures of Alisher Navoi’s "Khamsah"

Abstract

In manuscript culture, classical literary texts are intertwined and miniatures can be not only illustrations but also visual texts with their own semiotic and interpretive meanings. The Khamsa of the poet Alisher Navoi and its miniatures in Eastern book art express the process of the transformation of the meaning, symbols, chronotopes and philosophical concepts of poetry into visual form. The text – miniature relationship is a systemic analytical model that can accommodate a semiotic, a spatial-temporal and an interpretive dimension. The artistic and aesthetic unification of the poems of Navoi'S Khamsa and their miniatures, the visual perception of the literary text, and the creation of intermedial and iconological model for their analysis are the subject of this research. A three-part analysis semiotic-semantic, chronotopic and plot-compositional, and hermeneutic-receptive was created and used to analyse the “Dispute between Khusrau and Farhad” from Farhad and Shirin and the miniature of Alexander’s meeting with the ruler who abandoned his crown and throne in Saddi Iskandari. The proposed model suggests that the miniature is a separate visual commentary that evokes the philosophical-Sufi and metaphysical aspects of Navoi's poetics. The framework offers a methodological underpinning for continued comparative, interdisciplinary and intercultural analysis of visual materials from the manuscript cultures of the Eastern world.