Plants, Pools and Pavilions: 16th Century Safavid Garden Paintings and Expressions of Power

In the realm of Persian manuscript painting, gardens and their associated structures are commonly overlooked in lieu of a larger narrative. However, the addition of various plant forms and built spaces within the garden are instead quite necessary to essential Safavid ideals about sovereignty and the landscape. Looking specifically at a double-page court and garden scene from the Keir Collection at the Dallas Museum of Art, from Qazwin, c.1570-80, it becomes clear that this scene would not be possible without the garden and all its blossoming inhabitants. I argue that landscapes are not simply beautiful, but that depictions of these complex spaces indicates a mastery over nature, functions to legitimize rulers and their territory, and operates within a distinctly Safavid conception of kingship. This set of paintings must be viewed through the lens of the contemporaneous audience who did not look to plants, pavilions, and pools as surplus ornament, but rather as primary players in courtly scenes. By examining the conditions of Safavid Qazvin politically, and the way gardens functioned within such a society, I hope to connect painted gardens to their physical counterparts in the late-1500s, and to larger ways these paintings function in affirming empire and solidifying cultural identity. These scenes are deliberately delightful and referential of the ideal—but they are also part of a larger cultural program aimed at creating and embellishing on the social fabric of Persian cities. With this research, I hope to force a reconsideration of landscape's seeming status in the shadows.