Enchanting Persian World Miniature Painting

This miniature painting honors Khayyam’s poetic spirit, blending Seljuk design, Sufi symbolism, and timeless reflections on life’s impermanence

Artwork Description

 about this miniature painting

This fictional Persian miniature portrays the celebrated polymath, poet, and philosopher Omar Khayyam in a stylised, symbolic form. The composition merges classical miniature techniques with visual cues from Seljuk manuscript art.

Khayyam is seated calmly, wearing layered orange and blue robes colors that, in Persian iconography, represent mystical wisdom and the tension between earthly and divine desires. His orange turban emphasizes this dual nature: a man of logic and passion alike.

In his hands, he gently holds a wine jug and goblet, symbolic of both worldly indulgence and spiritual metaphor. The background features a soft grey plane bordered by golden columns and a delicately decorated arch, creating a meditative setting that draws focus inward. A structured geometric frame surrounds the image, echoing Seljuk design principles and referencing order and harmony in Persian cosmology.

Above the figure, a verse from Khayyam is inscribed in elegant Thuluth script: "I can't live without sipping pure wine." Though seemingly indulgent, the quatrain invites layered interpretations. It reflects Khayyam’s famous embrace of transience and sensual awareness. Rather than pure hedonism, it hints at a deeper existential reckoning, a poetic call to savor life’s fleeting beauty before it fades.

View her Dubai collection of available paintings here

about the artist

Parisa Sahafiasl is an Iranian‑Turkish miniature artist and academic born in Ardabil in 1984. She earned her master’s in Art Studies from Tehran Shahed University in 2010. Her 2020 PhD focused on Seljuk miniature art traditions at Ondokuz Mayıs University in Turkey.

She currently serves as Assistant Professor of Traditional Turkish Arts at Erciyes University, Kayseri. Parisa’s research spans Islamic architecture, illumination, and Seljuk‑era manuscript traditions. She has held solo exhibitions since 2013 and participated in numerous international symposia and juried shows.

Her work has appeared in Iran, Turkey, and across Europe, recognized for scholarly depth and visual elegance. Through her practice, Sahafiasl revives ancient decorative traditions with contemporary sensibility and academic rigor.

Copyright

This miniature painting is one of a kind original therefore, all copyrights and reproduction rights are reserved by the artist.