第 32 页

else does, the artist believes he’ll be spared what he’s feared for years. Others

listen to him and believe him only when he admits his guilt, for which he is

then condemned to burn in Hell—the illustrator of Isfahan lit these hellfires

himself.”

“But you’re not a miniaturist,” he said. “I didn’t kill him out of fear.”

“You murdered him because you wanted to paint as you wished, without

fear.”

For the first time in a long while, the miniaturist who aspired to be my

murderer said something quite intelligent: “I know you’re explaining all this

to distract me, to dupe me, to get yourself out of this situation,” and he

added, “but what you’ve just said is the truth. I want you to understand,

listen to me.”

I looked into his eyes. He’d completely forgotten the formality customary

between us as he spoke: He’d been carried away by his own thoughts. But to

where?

“Never fear, I won’t offend your honor,” he said. He laughed bitterly as he

circled around to face me. “Even now,” he said, “as I’m doing this, it doesn’t

seem to be me. It’s as if there’s something writhing within me compelling me

to do its evil bidding. Yet I need that thing nonetheless. It’s that way with

painting, too.”

“These are old wives’ tales about the Devil.”

“You think I’m lying, then?”

183

He didn’t have enough courage to murder me, so he wanted me to enrage

him. “Nay, you’re not lying but you’re not acknowledging what you feel

either.”

“I acknowledge very well what I feel. I’m suffering the torments of the grave

without having died. Unawares, we’ve sunk to our necks in sin because of you,

and now you’re preaching ”more courage.“ You’re the one who’s made me a

murderer. Nusret Hoja’s rabid henchmen will kill us all.”

The less confident he became, the more he raised his voice and the more

fiercely he gripped the inkpot. Would somebody passing down the snowy

street hear his shouting and enter the house?

“How did you kill him?” I asked, more to buy time than out of curiosity.

“How did you chance to meet at the mouth of that well?”

“The night Elegant Effendi left your house, he came to me,” he said, with an

unexpected desire to confess. “He said he’d seen the final double-leaf painting.

I tried at length to dissuade him from making an issue out of it. I got him to

walk over to the area ravaged by the fire. I told him I had money buried near

the well. When he heard that, he believed me…What better proof that an

illustrator is motivated by greed alone? That’s another reason I’m not sorry.

He was a talented, but mediocre artist. The greedy oaf was ready to dig into

the frozen earth with his fingernails. You see, if I truly had gold pieces buried

beside that well, I wouldn’t have had to do away with him. Yes, you hired

yourself quite a miserable wretch to do your gilding. The dearly departed had

finesse, but his choice of color and application was ordinary, and his

illuminations were uninspired. I didn’t leave a trace…Tell me, then, what is

the essence of ”style‘? Today, both the Franks and the Chinese talk about the

character of a painter’s talent, what they call “style.” Should style distinguish a

good artist from others or not?“

“Fear not,” I said, “a new style doesn’t spring from a miniaturist’s own

desire. A prince dies, a shah loses a battle, a seemingly never-ending era ends, a

workshop is closed and its members disband, searching for other homes and

other bibliophiles to become their patrons. One day, a compassionate sultan

will assemble these exiles, these bewildered but talented refugee miniaturists

and calligraphers, in his own tent or palace and begin to establish his own

book-arts workshop. Even if these artists, unaccustomed to one another,

continue at first in their respective painting styles, over time, as with children

who gradually become friends by roughhousing on the street, they’ll quarrel,

bond, struggle and compromise. The birth of a new style is the result of years

184

of disagreements, jealousies, rivalries and studies in color and painting.

Generally, it’ll be the most gifted member of the workshop who fathers this

form. Let’s also call him the most fortunate. To the rest of the miniaturists

falls the singular duty of perfecting and refining this style through perpetual

imitation.”

Unable to look me straight in the eye, he assumed an unexpected gentle

manner, and begging my compassion as much as my honesty, he asked me,

trembling like a maiden:

“Do I have a style of my own?”

I thought tears would flow from my eyes. With all the gentleness, sympathy

and kindness I could muster, I hastened to tell him what I believed to be the

truth:

“You are the most talented, divinely inspired artist with the most

enchanted touch and eye for detail that I’ve seen in all my sixty years. If you

put a painting before me which had seen the combined work of a thousand

miniaturists, I’d still be able to recognize instantly the God-given magnificence

of your pen.”

“Agreed, but I know you’re not wise enough to appreciate the mystery of

my skill,” he said. “You’re lying, now, because you’re afraid of me. Describe,

once again, the character of my methods.”

“Your pen selects the right line seemingly of its own accord, as if without

your touch. What your pen draws is neither truthful nor frivolous! When you

portray a crowded gathering, the tension emerging from the glances between

figures, their positioning on the page and the meaning of the text

metamorphose into an elegant eternal whisper. I return to your paintings

again and again to hear that whisper, and each time, I realize with a smile that

the meaning has changed, and how shall I put it, I begin to read the painting

anew. When these layers of meaning are taken together, a depth emerges that

surpasses even the perspectivism of the European masters.”

“Fine and well. Forget about the European masters. Start from the

beginning.”

“You have such a truly magnificent and forceful line, that the observer

believes in what you’ve painted rather than in reality itself. And just as your

talent could create a picture that would force the most devout man to

renounce his faith, it could also bring the most hopeless, unrepentant

unbeliever to Allah’s path.”

185

“True, but I’m not sure that amounts to praise. Try again.”

“There’s no miniaturist who knows the consistency of paint and its secrets

as well as you do. You always prepare and apply the glossiest, most vibrant,

most genuine colors.”

“Yes, and what else?”

“You know you’re the greatest of painters after Bihzad and Mir Seyyid Ali.”

“Yes, I’m aware of this. If you are too, why are you making the book with

that model of mediocrity Black Effendi?”

“First, the work he does doesn’t require a miniaturist’s skill,” I said.

“Second, unlike yourself, he’s not a murderer.”

He smiled sweetly under the influence of my joke. With this, I thought I

might be able to escape this nightmare thanks to a new expression—this word

“style.” Upon my broaching the subject, we began a pleasant discussion

concerning the bronze Mongol inkpot he held, not like father and son, but like

two curious and experienced old men. The weight of the bronze, the balance of

the inkpot, the depth of its neck, the length of old calligraphy reed pens and

the mysteries of red ink, whose consistency he could feel as he gently swung

the inkpot before me…We agreed that if the Mongols hadn’t brought the

secrets of red paint—which they’d learned from Chinese masters—to

Khorasan, Bukhara and Herat, we in Istanbul couldn’t make these paintings at

all. As we talked, the consistency of time, like that of the paint, seemed to

change, to flow ever more quickly. In a corner of my mind I was wondering

why no one had yet returned home. If only he’d put down that weighty object.

With our customary workaday ease, he asked me, “When your book is

finished, will those who see my work appreciate my skill?”

“If we can, God willing, finish this book without interference, Our Sultan

will look it over, of course, checking first to see whether we used enough gold

leaf in the appropriate places. Then, as if reading a description of Himself, as

any sultan would, He’ll stare at his own portrait, struck by His own likeness

rather than by our magnificent illustrations; thereafter, if He takes the time to

examine the spectacle we’ve painstakingly and devotedly created at the

expense of the light of our eyes, so much the better. You know, as well as I, that

barring a miracle, He’ll lock the book away in His treasury without even asking

who made the frame or the gilded illuminations, who painted this man or

that horse—and like all skillful artisans, we’ll go back to painting, ever hopeful

that one day a miracle of acknowledgment will find us.”

186

We were silent for a while, as if patiently waiting for something.

“When will that miracle happen?” he asked. “When will all those paintings

we’ve worked on until we could no longer see straight truly be appreciated?

When will they give me, give us, the respect we deserve?”

“Never!”

“How so?”

“They’ll never give you what you want,” I said. “In the future, you’ll be even

less appreciated.”

“Books last for centuries,” he said proudly but without confidence.

“Believe me, none of the Venetian masters have your poetic sensibility, your

conviction, your sensitivity, the purity and brightness of your colors, yet their

paintings are more compelling because they more closely resemble life itself.

They don’t paint the world as seen from the balcony of a minaret, ignoring

what they call perspective; they depict what’s seen at street level, or from the

inside of a prince’s room, taking in his bed, quilt, desk, mirror, his tiger, his

daughter and his coins. They include it all, as you know. I’m not persuaded by

everything they do. Attempting to imitate the world directly through painting

seems dishonorable to me. I resent it. But there’s an undeniable allure to the

paintings they make by those new methods. They depict what the eye sees just

as the eye sees it. Indeed, they paint what they see, whereas we paint what we

look at. Beholding their work, one comes to realize that the only way to have

one’s face immortalized is through the Frankish style. And it’s not only the

inhabitants of Venice who are captured by this notion, but all the tailors,

butchers, soldiers, priests and grocers in all the Frankish lands…They all have

their portraits made this way. Just a glance at those paintings and you too

would want to see yourself this way, you’d want to believe that you’re

different from all others, a unique, special and particuliar human being.

Painting people, not as they are perceived by the mind, but as they are actually

seen by the naked eye, painting in the new method, allows for this possibility.

One day everyone will paint as they do. When ”painting‘ is mentioned, the

world will think of their work! Even a poor foolish tailor who understands

nothing of illustrating will want such a portrait so he might be convinced,

upon seeing the unique curve of his nose, that he’s not an ordinary simpleton,

but an extraordinary man.“

“So? We can make that portrait, as well,” quipped the witty assassin.

187

“We won’t!” I replied. “Haven’t you learned from your victim, the late

Elegant Effendi, how afraid we are of being labeled imitators of the Franks?

Even if we venture bravely to paint like them, it’ll amount to the same thing.

In the end, our methods will die out, our colors will fade. No one will care

about our books and our paintings, and those who do express interest will ask

with a sneer, with no understanding whatsoever, why there’s no perspective—

or else they won’t be able to find the manuscripts at all. Indifference, time and

disaster will destroy our art. The Arabian glue used in the bindings contains

fish, honey and bone, and the pages are sized and polished with a finish made

from egg white and starch. Greedy, shameless mice will nibble these pages

away; termites, worms and a thousand varieties of insect will gnaw our

manuscripts out of existence. Bindings will fall apart and pages will drop out.

Women lighting their stoves, thieves, indifferent servants and children will

thoughtlessly tear out the pages and pictures. Child princes will scrawl over the

illustrations with toy pens. They’ll blacken people’s eyes, wipe their runny

noses on the pages, doodle in the margins with black ink. And religious

censors will blacken out whatever is left. They’ll tear and cut up our paintings,

perhaps use them to make other pictures or for games and such

entertainment. While mothers destroy the illustrations they consider obscene,

fathers and older brothers will jack off onto the pictures of women and the

pages will stick together, not only because of this, but also due to being

smeared with mud, water, bad glue, spit and all manner of filth and food.

Stains of mold and dirt will blossom like flowers where the pages have stuck

together. Rain, leaky roofs, floods and dirt will ruin our books. Of course,

together with the tattered, faded and unreadable pages, which water,

humidity, bugs and neglect will have reduced to pulp, the one last volume to

emerge intact, like a miracle, from the bottom of a bone-dry chest will also

one day disappear, swallowed up in the flames of a merciless fire. Is there a