A Comparative Study of Visual Features Interaction in Safavid and Mughal Acension Paintings

Ascension (heavenly journey of Prophet Muhammad) is one of the most important religious issues that its representation was especially important in manuscripts of Islamic countries. In Timurid and Safavid periods, many painters worked in this field and famous people such as Kamal al-Din Behzad and Sultan Muhammad created fine works in the field. Due to the cultural relations with Safavid and Mughal court, Iranian painter transferred this art to India and ascension painting spread in India. The present theoretical and fundamental research aims at studying the evolution of Iranian Ascension paintings representations after spreading in Indian art. This study mainly investigates how Safavid and Mughal ascension paintings affected Indian paintings and how they were affected by Indians through comparing and contrasting visual features. The results of this research which is a descriptive and analytical research and is based on electronic and library resources suggest that the visual features of Mughal ascension paintings due to the duplication of Iranian books at first has been much in compliance with Iranian paintings and were accepted because of common cultural fields in india. But gradually with independence of Indian painters from Iranian painter teachings, the local elements appeared in Indian paintings. So that, in some cases they were out of the original story and Islamic essence and were combined with elements of Indian culture. In later periods, Mughal ascension paintings style spread to other Islamic countries including Iran and affected on ascension painting of this countries.