Style combination · Contrasts

Armenian Manuscript Illumination × Persian Miniature

Both frame jewel-coloured paintings with gold and ornament, but Armenian Gospel books build symmetrical arcades, canon tables and bird letters for sacred text, while Persian pages crowd secular epic and lyric scenes into an asymmetric, climbing space; decide whether the frame or the story leads.

From the research on Persian Miniature (Ilkhanid, Timurid and Safavid Book Painting)

Mix them and make something Armenian Manuscript Illumination Persian Miniature

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Persian Miniature, their arrangement from Armenian Manuscript Illumination, the finish from Armenian Manuscript Illumination. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

Armenian Manuscript Illumination Persian Miniature (Ilkhanid, Timurid and Safavid Book Painting)

Type from Armenian Manuscript Illumination: Brush & pen calligraphy
Ornamented display
Colour from Persian Miniature: Jewel & metallic
Full polychrome
Form from Persian Miniature: Stylised figuration
Abundant decoration
Composition from Armenian Manuscript Illumination: Framed panels
Central symmetry
Surface from Armenian Manuscript Illumination: Flat

The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Armenian Manuscript Illumination

Luxe

Uncial Antiqua, standing in for Erkatagir ('iron letters'), the uncial held to be Mesrop Mashtots's original form of the alphabet of 405, used for manuscript text from the 5th to the 13th century and still preferred for inscriptions

Text · Persian Miniature

The court book painting of Iran and Timurid Herat, formed in Mongol Tabriz from Islamic, Byzantine and Chinese models: from Rashid al-Din's Jamiʿ al-tawarikh (1314) and the Great Mongol Shahnama to Behzad's Herat and the Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp, ending in the album pages of Safavid Isfahan. Small, elegant figures crowd a picture set into ruled columns of verse and framed by coloured rules and gilded margins. Space climbs the page under a high horizon, without linear perspective or cast shadow, in lapis, vermilion, malachite, gold and silver.

EB Garamond; Persian Miniature used Nastaʿlīq, the hanging Persian hand of Timurid and Safavid manuscripts, written in ruled columns around the paintings and Headings written in an illuminated panel across the full width of the text block, set apart from the text in gold and colour, as on the first text page of the Shiraz Shahnama of 1444, where the basmala heads the preface (Cleveland Museum of Art, 1956.10.b)

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Persian Miniature, with a counter-accent from Armenian Manuscript Illumination. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Armenian Manuscript Illumination Persian Miniature (Ilkhanid, Timurid and Safavid Book Painting)

#efe4c8 ground · 36%
#1f3f8f ink · 14%
#c8412c accent · 18%
#c9a13b accent · 14%
#d98f86 accent · 10%
#4f8a4a accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #efe4c8;
  --ink: #1f3f8f;
  --accent-1: #c8412c;
  --accent-2: #c9a13b;
  --accent-3: #d98f86;
  --accent-4: #4f8a4a;
  --font-display: "Uncial Antiqua", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "EB Garamond", serif;
}

Use it with care

Armenian Manuscript Illumination: These are Gospel books, lectionaries and Bibles of the Armenian Apostolic Church, and their crosses, evangelist symbols, portraits of Christ and the saints and holy names keep their sacred meaning; do not use them as texture, logos or decoration on trivial products. Armenian letter art, including ornamental letters made of birds, animals and people, is living heritage (UNESCO Representative List, 2019) practised by calligraphers, carpet weavers, embroiderers and jewellers, so commission or collaborate with Armenian artists rather than lifting motifs, and have any Armenian text written or checked by a fluent reader instead of assembling letters as pseudo-script. Manuscripts were seized, scattered or lost in the Armenian Genocide of 1915, the Zeyt'un Gospels among them (its canon tables were removed and sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum in 1994; a 2015 agreement acknowledged the Armenian Church as their owner while the leaves stayed at the Getty), and several of the scriptoria (Vaspurakan, Cilicia) now lie outside Armenia: credit the work as Armenian, naming its Byzantine models, and the Syriac ones of the earliest books, where they matter, and do not fold it into a generic 'Byzantine' or 'Oriental' style.

Persian Miniature (Ilkhanid, Timurid and Safavid Book Painting): Some histories and poems in this tradition depict the Prophet Muhammad, such as his Night Journey (Miʿraj) on Buraq (a Bustan of Saʿdi folio of c. 1525–35, made probably in Bukhara and Herat rather than in Safavid Iran; Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1974.294.2); after about 1500 Persian painters usually veiled his face, and many Muslims consider any image of him forbidden, so do not adapt or generate such scenes, never supply a face for the Prophet, and keep holy figures off trivial products. Verses, names of God and Qur'anic phrases in the text panels are real texts: have them written or checked by a fluent reader of Persian and Arabic and never fill panels with pseudo-script. Many famous folios are dispersed: George Demotte broke up the Great Mongol Shahnama and altered its pages, and Arthur Houghton gave folios of the Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp to the Metropolitan Museum and sold others one by one before the remains of the manuscript went to Tehran in 1994, so credit each leaf to its manuscript as well as to its present collection. The court tradition declines from the 17th century, which is why the period ends in 1700, but the art of miniature is still practised (Abu'l-Hasan Khan Gaffari in 19th-century Qajar Iran, Mahmoud Farshchian (1930–2025) in our own time); it is living heritage, inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List in 2020 on a joint nomination by Azerbaijan, Iran, Türkiye and Uzbekistan and passed on from master to apprentice, so commission or credit practising painters rather than tracing their work, credit the court and city (Tabriz, Herat, Shiraz, Isfahan) rather than a single modern nation, and never present a generated image as a historical folio.

The two styles

An ornate, symmetrical illustration in blue, red, green and gold shows peacocks, smaller birds and reclining deer among flowering vines and pomegranates. A central panel with Armenian lettering sits above three decorated arches, all enclosed by a floral border.

c. 862–1800 · Middle East & North Africa, Eastern Europe Armenian Manuscript Illumination The illuminated books of the Armenian Church, from the Gospel of Queen Mlke (c. 862) and the Etchmiadzin Gospels (989) to the last manuscripts around 1800. A Gospel book opens with Eusebian canon tables under painted arcades whose arches and headpieces teem with vegetal and geometric ornament and perched birds. Text runs, usually in two columns, in erkatagir or bolorgir script, chapters open on letters built from birds and beasts, and birds, trees and crosses stand in the margins, in ultramarine, vermilion and gold on parchment.

An ornate Persian-miniature-style garden illustration shows flowering trees, a winding blue stream, deer, spotted cats, colorful birds, and people gathered around a richly decorated pavilion. Floral borders and gold detailing surround the scene, with “Garden of Wonders” written in a cartouche at the top.

c. 1300–1700 · Middle East & North Africa, South Asia Persian Miniature (Ilkhanid, Timurid and Safavid Book Painting) The court book painting of Iran and Timurid Herat, formed in Mongol Tabriz from Islamic, Byzantine and Chinese models: from Rashid al-Din's Jamiʿ al-tawarikh (1314) and the Great Mongol Shahnama to Behzad's Herat and the Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp, ending in the album pages of Safavid Isfahan. Small, elegant figures crowd a picture set into ruled columns of verse and framed by coloured rules and gilded margins. Space climbs the page under a high horizon, without linear perspective or cast shadow, in lapis, vermilion, malachite, gold and silver.

More combinations

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