Feb 21, 2010 3:00 PM at the Caroline Wiess Law Building
A Thousand Years of “Feast and Lore”: The Shahnama of Firdawsi
Presented by Dr. Francesca Leoni, Assistant Curator of the Arts of the Islamic World, MFAH
The year 2010 marks the 1000th anniversary of the completion of the Shahnama (“Book of Kings”), the most important Persian epic and one of the longest poems of world literature. Composed by Abu´l-Qasim Firdawsi over more than 35 years, the Shahnama recounts the history of the Iranian kings from the beginning of time until the fall of the Sasanian Dynasty in the mid-7th century.
For centuries, the poem has provided an inexhaustible source of artistic inspiration to the arts produced in greater Iran, as well as the eastern Islamic world. Many rulers sponsored lavishly illustrated copies of the Shahnama, and often referred to it for ideological purposes. Similarly, specific stories and characters drawn from the Shahnama were used as motifs to decorate ceramics, tile panels, inlaid metalwork, lacquer work, and textiles.
In this richly illustrated lecture Dr. Francesca Leoni reconstructs the literary and artistic afterlife of the Shahnama over the last 1000 years, and explains why and how the poem has remained so revered and influential.
This lecture is generously cosponsored by His Highness Prince Aga Khan Shia Imami Ismaili Council for the Southwestern United States.
http://www.mfah.org/calendar.asp?eid=19926&par1=1&par2=2/21/2010&par3=week&par4=0&par5=0&par6=0&par7
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