Lot 527: Eshgh (Love)

Eshgh (Love) acrylic on canvas, framed signed "Mohammad Ehsai" and dated "1375" (AP) in Farsi (lower left), executed in 1996 140 x 140cm (55 1/8 x 55 1/8in).

1996140x 140cm

: Property from a private collection, California

Mohammad Ehsai is unquestionably one of the most technically gifted Iranian calligraphers of the past century. An erudite academician as well as a master of his craft, Ehsai synthesizes the technical expertise of his formal training within a strictly contemporary visual schema, and counts as one of the rare few who can combine the vision of the artist with the craft of the calligrapher, producing works whose technical excellence is unrivalled, and whose conceptual makeup is both reflective and profound. A master and lifelong disciple of traditional Persian calligraphy, in Eshgh ehsai expresses his technical expertisein a novel and innovation format that affirms a true willingness to break from the classical formalism of the calligraphic orthodoxy. Known for his tightly composed intricate calligraphy, the present work breaks from the rigid architecture of the past with a deft fluidity of execution, asserting a high level of spatial awareness and fluency of form. Letterforms are given new life, freed from the classical monotone. Words are rendered with bold, colourful letters atypical of academic calligraphy, they fan elegantly outwards circumambulation an intertwined nucleus; the cyclical format and fractal quality of the composition harks to the meditative practises favoured by the Sufis, for whom repetition whether oral or physical (as in the whirling Samma dance) engendered a sensual rapture that took them closer to the divine. By drawing on these divine sources, Ehsai acknowledges his place within a tradition spanning over one thousand years, pioneered by artists whose aim was to capture in words the attributes of heavenly perfection. His recognition of this legacy is enacted with a fluency, simplicity, and poise, all of which supersede the obscurity of hitherto calligraphic production. Dominant, graceful and profound, Eshgh is a magnificent testament to the continuation of a historical practice contextualised in a modern era. Ultimately, his oeuvre not only pays tribute to century long traditions, but at the same time makes the more profound artistic statement that sanctity and perfection can be related through visual beauty, and that the graceful aesthetic of the letter-form reveals qualities and attributes that shed light on aspects of the human and the divine which are otherwise unfathomable.