A look to the life of Master KAMALODIN BEHZAD

KAMALODIN BEHZAD (Iranian painter-probably 865 LUNAR HEJRI/1460 BC- 942 LH/1535 BC), innovative artist and master, who opened a way in the field of Iranian painting and made a large impact on later artists in Iran, India, Turkey and middle Asia. Maybe he became orphan in childhood. And RUHOLAH MIRAK in HERAT, took his guardianship and taught him painting (PIR SEYED AHMAD TABRIZI was also named as his master).
MIR ALI SHIRNAVAEE, encouraged and supported him in taught and art. Then BEHZAD went to serve King HOSEIN BAYEGHRA (890 LH/1485 BC). When OZBAKS captured HERAT, he stayed in the said city and continued his work in the new court.
Later went to Tabriz and in the court of King ESMAIL SAFAVI, became head of library and art workshop (928 LH/1521 BC). Probably he was holding the said post until the kingdom of first TAHMASB. While he was staying in HERAT and TABRIZ, was training great students such as GHASEM ALI SHEIKHZADEH and MIR MOSAVAR. He died in Tabriz and was buried beside the shrine of SHEIKH KAMAL KHOJANDI.
Many paintings were appointed to our great master, but it is believed that only 32 of them are really belong to him. Of course the said number of art works are belonged to 10 years of his long period of activity (901 LH/1495 BC-891 LH/1468 BC).
All experts, are considering the six paintings of BOUSTAN SAADI book as the most important of KAMALODIN BEHZAD`s works. Even though there are only 4 of them are available. In two copies KHAMSE NEZAMI, which are available in Britain library, we can see 18 works of BEHZAD.
KAMALODIN, was grown up in HERAT system. But with own great ability in composition, harmony of colors and balance of figures, made an important change in Iranian traditional painting. With the help of dynamic figure maker lines, moved the smooth sculptures in the previous paintings.
He changed the nature and architecture in to the practice place and people`s action. And in this environment, considered a suitable place for every image. By using the mutual effects of colors, connected the different parts of an image.in order to strengthen his work structure, approached to geometric methods of building composition. By this way, he could make a logical connection among humans, objects and environment, which was a recent achievement in Iranian painting. realistic interpretation from story events and paying attention to real life effects, was another aspect of BEHZAD`s innovations. in portrayal of environment and life and work of the people, sometimes he was showing very much vigilance (for example, some workers who are distributing a certain amount of work to build a palace, and among them, we can see a negro construction worker, some servants who are preparing the royal banquet facilities, a slave, standing and holding a towel to clean his master`s feet). However, BEHZAD is not betraying the spiritual pick from the story theme on normal event description. On the other hand, he selected a method on the basis of aesthetic of Iranian painting for embodiment of real world.
Therefore, his realism was different from European naturalism. In paintings of great painter Mr.KAMALODIN BEHZAD, feelings and sense were balanced elegantly and in artistic way. In fact, his kind of paintings with human and application method of color and line, and totally are in full compliance with construct of his works. This humanistic content and its associate format is unprecedented in the history of Persian paintings. as the said master was very famous during centuries, many have copied his works and put the BEHZAD`s name on them, so distinguishing his works became so difficult. The research about his real works was resulted a little bit in Iranian art exhibition in London in the year 1931. His real works with his real signature are in BOSTAN SAADI book, which is preserved in national library of Cairo city in Egypt. Method of using different colors with bright images show the deep sensitivity of master toward colors. We can realize that, master was interested more in cold colors (different sources of green and blue. but every where, he used some dark oranges to make a balance. proportion of each part of the image with full set is wonderful. branches, full of blossoms and decoration of tiles and full designed carpets, are showing his brilliant design talent. but more than all is his realism, which separates his works from previous painters. this realism is seen in some of his pictures, which are not only about court and kingdom and show the life of ordinary people (milking the mares to spheres at farm, punishing a person who entered the other`s privacy, the servants who bring food, villagers on land and Etc.). and the faces of men are not like toys as we have seen in other painters work. but every face indicates a character and you can see movement and life in it. men in rest also have normal figure and form. on the works which are related to BEHZAD, you can see a reliable signature. thus only images style (unique combination of designed pictures real images) can show us his original works. out of countless pictures which have been printed in books and magazines by the name of BEHZAD, only few are belong to him as experts say. anyway, if those pictures are not of master, but they are belong to his style. some of the books which are attributed to the great master are:
Scape of YOUSEF from ZOLEIKHA (BOUSTAN SAADI book) (893 LH/1488 BC), camel riders fight, building KHORNAGH palace (KHAMSE NEZAMI book) (898 LH/1492 BC), prophet Mohammed (PBUH) and great caliphs (HEIRATOL ABRAR book, MIR ALISHIR NAVAEE) (approximately 901 LH/1495), SOURAT SHEIBAK KHAN (approximately 914 LH/1508 BC).
We can see the influence of master BEHZAD in works of his students. some of his students such as GHASEM ALI and AGHA MIRAK, nearly reached to the master`s works. even though during SAFAVID period, miniaturization styles was changed once again, nearly fifty years after death of KAMALODIN BEHZAD, still we can see his influence in works of painters. HERATI painters took the style of master BEHZAD to the court of SHEIBANI family and raised it. a book by name love and customer which was graph copied in 926 LH in BOKHARA city, shows that the BEHZAD`s style was preserved in BOKHARA, better than TABRIZ. By migration of some painters to India, the style of BEHZAD was disseminated in that place also.