Introducing & analysis of Garshasp-namaManuscript of the British Museum

Garshasp-nama is a poetic and agonistic story about the adventures of Garshasp ancestor of Rostam, which was written by Asadi Tusi, a poet of the 5th century. There are 39 complete and incomplete copies of Garshasp-nama, few of which are illustrated. The purpose of this essay is to introduce the British Museum version with the number or.12985 and the date of writing 981 AH/1573 AD and explore the visual structure and formal characteristics of its paintings to gain more knowledge of historical and abandoned Iranian documents and knowledge of the visual culture of the past. This illustrated sample has 8 illustrations that have the pictorial and stylistic characteristics of the Qazvin school. The present article tries to answer the question, what are the formal features of the index and the common aspects of the paintings? The descriptive-analytical and historical research method was conducted in a qualitative and inductive way. The results of the study showed; the illustrations of the edition are depicted in two themes of war and banquet, which are more prominent in the development of the theme and artistic expression due to the epic theme of the work. Although in contrast to the characteristic feature of Asadi's poems in describing the scenes of marvel, we are faced with the cautious and naturalistic approach of its writers. The centrality of the hero's character in the image and his facelessness, attention to the richness and color effects as well as the proportional composition are the most important common visual features of Garshasp-nama's paintings.