The Prophet Jonah’s story, as told in the Bible and the Koran, has been illustrated many times, especially his being swallowed by a whale, a fish or some mythical sea monster. Inasmuch as the historical texts themselves do not agree as to the taxon involved and provide no descriptive information except that the creature was marine and of large size, zoologists, cryptozoologists, and art historians seem to have been limited to commenting on possible sources of various renditions. This painting is slightly less than 48 cm wide and is an Islamic miniature. It was painted in Persia ca. 1400. It is one of many paintings made by unnamed artists to illustrate some copies of Jami‘ al-Tawarikh (or ‘World History’), a classic work that includes episodes from the Bible, Koran, and life of Buddha. A translation of the texts on Jonah’s arms reads: ‘The disk of the sun entered into darkness’ on his left arm and ‘Jonah entered the mouth of the fish’ on his right; the former, which was taken from the Gulistan .D Flower Garden) ofSa‘di written in 1258, is a more poetic rendering of the latter. The angel, however, appears to be offering the naked Prophet a garment, and this, as well as the proximity of terrestrial vegetation, suggest he is leaving the mouth of the fish. The fish undoubtedly was copied from Chinese paintings (Rice 1976, Blair 1995). It most closely approximates some kind of carp but its mouth has been enlarged to accommodate the squatting figure, and the opercular opening approaches the eye too closely to make it a recognisable rendition of any particular species. There also are two dorsal fins (not found in any member of the carp family), and the pectoral fins are located too far from the head. Nevertheless, the fish does exhibit a number of well-observed features such as symmetrical, overlapping scales on the body with smaller ones on the caudal peduncle, fins with fin rays, and the absence of head scales and teeth.
کلید واژگان :Fish imagery, art, Jonah
ارزش ریالی : 600000 ریال
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