Exhibit by Iranian, Tajik artists to celebrate poet Khujandi’s 700th birthday
TEHRAN –(Iranart)- Iranian calligrapher Mirhossein Zanuzi and Tajik painter Karim Raqibov have teamed up to celebrate the 700th birthday of Persian poet and mystic Kamal Khujandi during an online exhibition, which will open on Saturday.
The showcase entitled “The Nightingale of Khujand” will be organized in a collaborative effort between the ECO Cultural Institute and the Iranian National Commission for UNESCO on the Instagram page of the commission.
Iranian National Commission for UNESCO director Hojjatollah Ayyubi and Sarvar Bakhti, the president of the ECO Cultural Institute, are expected to deliver speeches during the opening ceremony of the exhibit.
Zanuzi is a master of calligraphy born in 1950 in Tabriz. He learned calligraphy with masters like Gholamhossein Amirkhani.
He has published books on art of calligraphy and has taken part in several solo and group exhibits in Iran and outside the country in countries such as Turkey, Tajikistan and Azerbaijan.
Raqibov is a master of Kundal, a style of polychrome decorative relief wall painting.
“The basis of Kundal’s design consists of three sources: geometric ornaments, which include the square, the triangle, the circle, the rectangle and other geometric figures such as the Arabesque; designs that come from nature, from trees, leaves, branches and flowers; and Zoomorphic ornaments, the ornaments taken from mythical creatures such as lions with wings and legendary birds or stars and the moon”, Raqibov has said.
Nothing is known of the family background or early life of Kamal Khujandi, also known as Shaikh Kamal.
Sometime after the middle of the 14th century, Kamal left his hometown and headed west, went to Mecca, never returned home and eventually settled in Tabriz.
Kamal’s poems were collected by his disciples upon his return to Tabriz from Saray, the capital city of the Golden Horde on the banks of the Volga, where he was forced to live for eleven years.
The divan, originally entitled Tarjoman al-Hal le-as’hab al-Kamal, consists almost entirely of lyric poetry, amounting to some 980 poems in the most recent editions.
Kamal’s poetry was only an adjunct to his life as an adept spiritual and Sufi leader.
Kamal’s poetry inevitably pales in comparison to that of Hafez, but this is more due to Hafez’s singular brilliance than to any shortcoming on the part of Kamal.
Kamal has especially attracted the attention and admiration of Tajik readers and scholars, who played a leading role in organizing an international conference in the northwestern Iranian city of Tabriz in November 1996 to commemorate the poet.
source: Tehran Times