the gaze upward across the page, deflect the viewer’sgaze.Incontrasttothe
European paintings, which direct the attention of the viewer to the central
figures, here the center is marked by the mihrab, underscored by semi-
perspectival sightlines. Yet the mihrab, always pointing elsewhere, is both a
focal point and an absence. Analogously, thefigures above escape the trap of
materiality. Like Yusuf, viewersfind their subjectivity decentered by the image- unlike in a European painting, we do not know atfirst where to look. The
image continually deflects the desire of our gaze, returning us the text.
Finally, although these European paintings take up a religious subject,
they engage it in a worldly way. If there is an exhortative voice in the
paintings, it concerns the rules of physical sexual behavior in light of
scripture, whether interpreted through the Lutheran framework or used
as a narrative through which to meditate on contemporary society.
Conversely, Bihzad’s painting looks contemporary–the palace andfigures
are imagined through conventions common to their era, and reflecting the
artist’s environment–but, like the poems with which it is intertwined,
never disengages from its interpretive lineage. Unlessfloating through a
palace can be considered useful advice, its interpretation bears less on our
everyday behavior than on how to meditate on the divine through our most
intimate passions. Like the poems, it says nothing about the rules of
everyday behavior, but everything about how to experience the realms of
creation through the heart. This discursive space in which it participates is
what constructs the Islamic, not simply as a practice of worship, or a
relationship with a scriptural tradition, but as perennial conversation
between multiple voices.
European painting distinguishes itself from textual interpretation; when
illustrating stories (as opposed to independent drawings in albums) manu-
script painting often enters into an interpretive conversation with text. The
European art-historical tradition expects demonstrative prose to provide
authoritative interpretive commentary on artworks, including poems. In
contrast, Islamic poetry and manuscript painting participates in a trans-
medial interpretive network not independent from artistic form. For this
reason, a synopsis of a European story illustrated in a painting provides
information about where the symbolism comes from, but often the paint-
ing represents beyond the purported text, as in the paintings of Joseph and
Potiphar’s wife surrounding Artemisia. Yet a synopsis of the story illu-
strated in a manuscript painting cannot trace the intellectual discussions in
which paintings often play a complex role.
Whereas Islamic painting often engages in an analytical discourse along-
side poetry, European painting often comments independently on the
266 The Transgressive Image