Ekphrasis in Mahmood Khan Saba’s painting (poet laureate)

The verbal or written explanation of a picture is called Ekphrasis. Ekphrasis is also imagining with words and text.  In other words, all poems, stories and interpretive articles that deal in different methods with artwork like architecture, graphics, sculpture and photography are Ekphrasis. Ekphrasis as a way for describing and interpreting artwork, could be the start of identifying and expressing a painting board, metal structure recreation in field of music and cinema.  Accompaniment of writing and other art genres is a matter that although has roots in the past but has been a center of attention and thinking in recent years. Ekphrasic texts have had a significant role in artistic revolutions. Through Ekphrasis, one can look at visual works from a different point of view and understand the truth of the work. Additionally, if an artwork gets lost, people can remember the lost work of art through an Ekphrasis text and recreate it. Awareness of the mechanism of efrasis can justify artists ‘efforts to describe their own or others’ artistic creations. Sometimes an artist working in two fields of art uses the power of a work of art in one area to interpret a work of art in another, and vice versa. This two-way relationship can be observed and identified in the works of some of the poets or painters of the world and Iran. Examination of poetry and painting by the poet The painter or poet-painter shows that the themes and concepts mentioned in the poem have a tangible and notable value in the painting and the poetry of these artists as an ecstatic text explains and explains their painting. One of these artists is Mahmoud Khan Malek al-Shoara, (poet laureate)one of the artists of the Qajar period who has been prominent in several artistic fields. His name has been mentioned in many literary memoirs and along with a poet, his mastery in painting has also been mentioned.He has created works in both poetry and painting. He is known and remembered as one of the most important painters of Qajar era. In addition to painting, he was one of the most significant individuals of poetry in his own time. Common contents in Mahmoud Khan Saba’s poetry and painting were of Ekphrasis expressions; And this article seeks to review it and in the end, answer the question of how Ekphrasis appears to be mental or real in this artist’s works. Some of the studies related to this matter are as follows: “Blind Butterfly and Absolute Sighted” (2018); Deals with the 4 major territories of Ekphrasis: Describing people, describing occurrences, Describing times and place. They added that Ekphrasis included describing tools as well as describing the way every one of them was built and used.  “Arjmandi” (2015) has shown interest in bonding of literature with painting and in his thesis with the title, “ Painting with literature:  Ekphrasis and visual culture in my red name”, he deals with “my red name”, a novel from Orhan Pamuk, Turkish writer and has reviewed it from Ekphrasic aspect. Azhand (2010) has focused not only on “Colligation and modernity” in Mahmoud Khan Saba’s works, but also his poetry and painting of this artist in Qajar era. But he does not deal with this subject in his research. As mentioned in the previous topics, the existing contents deal with what Ekphrasis is, case studying Ekphrasis in a novel, and also investigating Mahmoud Khan Saba ‘s works without any reference to Ecfrasis.  In writers’ opinions, this research in its context opens another doorway to Mahmoud Khan Saba ‘s works.   This article is from the class of qualitative approach of cultural studies, the results of which have been obtained in an analytical and descriptive way with examples of written and visual evidence. Libraries are the main sources of this research and it is derived from public and scientific databases. In a number of artists’ works, who have dealt with both painting and poetry, there is some form of coordination and accompaniment in expressing the texture of the two genres.  This phenomenon could help us understand artworks or in some cases, recreate, rehabilitate and restore them. Accordingly, what has been seen in Mahmoud Khan Saba ‘s poem, usage of Ekphrasis could help us understand and identify the paintings of this Qajar artist. As we saw, Mahmoud Khan was both a poet and a painter; This colligation and coordination was not accidental and Ekphrasis has shown itself in two real and mental forms.  Real Ekphrasis is in two forms in Mahmoud Khan’s poem: Sometimes his paintings are artistic and coordinated with painted pictures take pictures and sometimes this poem serves as a report to explain an architectural building, like Sultanabad mansion or a garden. Real Ekphrasis exists in both forms. Because the poem has targeted a reality. An object that is displayed either in painting or in architecture. In the second case, without seeing, its architectural work is drawn and visualized in the mind through reading the poem.