Handmade Artist's Book

Ten Poems from Hafez, Artist's Book in a handmade, limited edition of 50 - Screen-printed on Somerset Soft White and Tenjin mould, at the Glasgow Print Studio. Bound at the Wyvern Bindery London using Buckram and Victorian marbled paper.

The book contains ten shape poems made from the collected works, or Divan of Hafez, the fourteenth-century Persian metaphysical poet from Shiraz. The whole Persian text of each poem has been designed in the shape of a symbolic animal used by Hafez in the text, and set alongside a new English translation by the artist. The book has a foreword by Parvin Loloi, author of “ Hafez, Master of Persian Poetry ” and an essay “ Figural Calligraphy in the Muslim World ” by Robert Hillenbrand, Professor of Islamic Art, University of Edinburgh. A conventional Persian transcription appears at the end of the book.

In the world of Islamic Art, calligraphy is the highest form of artistic expression in a culture where the word is the icon. To this day, calligraphy remains the only art to evoke the essential character of the Islamic world in a continuous tradition.

Using script to make shapes, figural calligraphy, is an ancient art form in which Islamic calligraphers had no rivals. Naskh, the cursive Arabic script, was particularly suited to poetic and visual interpretation. It can bear significant distortion without sacrificing legibility as it can be read at the same time both phonetically and iconically. Based on the Arabic naskh, the Nast'aligh script developed in fifteenth century Iran, was specifically designed for writing poetry in Persian, and serves as the model for Jila Peacock's calligraphic style.