Enchanting Persian World Miniature Painting

This miniature painting explores love as a spiritual force, balancing dualities through a poetic and symbolic visual narrative

Artwork Description

 about this miniature painting

This Persian miniature painting features a symbolic composition showing a man and woman in a visual tug-of-war. Both figures are dressed in traditional garments and pull from either side of a single rope. At the rope’s center sits the word "عشق" (ʿeshq / love), knotted around a gilded cube that acts as their axis. The cube, central and golden, serves as a spiritual and emotional anchor for the scene.

The background is soft beige, allowing the symbolic tension between the figures to emerge with clarity and calmness. Each figure wears a golden shamsa (sunburst halo), drawn from Islamic manuscript traditions. These halos lift the subjects into a spiritual register, suggesting they represent more than individuals—they symbolize broader human forces.

Hovering above is a verse by Rumi in Kufic script: "Your body is like a mill whose water is love." This poetic line reframes the scene. The tugging figures are not simply in opposition but reflect an internal and external dance of longing, connection, and duality. The rope becomes a lifeline, a spiritual thread pulled by desire, identity, and devotion.

The composition blends classical Persian aesthetics with a modern conceptual lens, balancing beauty and metaphor. Love is portrayed not as possession but as energy, vital, sustaining, transformative. This visual dialogue offers a Sufi-inspired reading: that human relationships mirror the tension between the soul and self, all powered by love’s enduring current.

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.