Survey Characteristics of Illustrated Manuscripts Case study: Examine an Example of Literary Manuscripts Held in Tabriz Central Library

Iran art in different historical periods is rooted in the spirits of the mind and thoughts of the artists manifested in different forms. One of the common forms of Iranian art is manuscript and its light is a great art of miniature. This is one of the Iranian noble arts which in addition to its aesthetic aspect, it carries symbolic concepts of philosophy, mysticism and logic. A number of these valuable manuscripts and miniatures are held in the libraries and museums at all over of Iran. Due to history of this city in production of manuscripts, Tabriz Central Library is one of the main libraries holding these manuscripts. This research was examined the physical and aesthetic features of these manuscripts and introduced one sample of manuscript with literary subject. In this regard, among numerous valuable and pictorial manuscripts in this library, the manuscript of Yusuf and Zoliekha (1866, Tehran School (Qajar period)) and its miniatures have been examined from semantic and aesthetic perspectives. The results were shown that manuscript contains aesthetic elements such as composition, lack of dimensionality, color, light and literary and religious content in addition to physical elements and common structure in Iranian- Islamic traditional miniature. The subject of this inscription is the story of the prophet Yusuf mentioned explicitly in Quran which illustrated issues such Zolikha suit, throwing Yusuf, Egyptian women cutting their fingers by seeing his face, imprisoning Yusuf in pictorial way.