Entrapping Ephemeral Magic: Sensation And Reward in the Persianate Garden
Collaborators: Manu P. Sobti, Mohammad Gharipour, Sahar Hosseini, Kinghi Thao & Benjamin B Schaefer
The Persian garden environment engaged its visitor via its plethora of resplendent color, myriad of fragrances and the bliss of singing birds. Yet, even in its ephemeral magic and the supposed rendition of paradise, it was a precisely orchestrated sequence of pausal moments and circulation paths. In its overarching focus on the causal sensations and rewards associated with auditory and olfactory stimuli imparted in the garden environment, this paper demonstrates the rich nature of the archive for the writing of sensory histories of the landscape. It proposes that in the hands of the Persian horticulturalist, pre- determined planting ‘maps’ that prescribed the locations and growth cycles of specific plant species in the garden environment, corresponded with precisely orchestrated (and pre-mediated) olfactory and auditory experiences. The garden designer therefore predicated visitation through vistas of color and realms of fragrant overlays. In its interdisciplinary focus on the reconstruction of these sensory experiences, it employs textual materials, alongside visual and neurological sources to provocatively argue that such spatial and particularly experiential reconstructions would necessitate the specific examination of garden texts.
In expanding upon our earlier work on color palettes in Persian gardens, we revisit horticultural design specifications from the Timurid and Safavid realms via Abu Nasri Haravi’s Irshad al-Zira‘a and Abdi Bayk Shirazi’s Jannat Al-Athmar. While the former was specific on the use of plant materials (including their varied hues), the latter metaphorically described the ‘conceptual’ promenade within Shah Tamasp’s Sa’adat Abad garden. Via evocative diagramming and media animations, this paper reconstructs these auditory experiences and olfactory realms that lay entrapped in these salubrious environments of the four seasons
For additional information on the Hamad bin Khalifah Symposium in Cordoba (Spain) see here and for the Dumbarton Oaks Symposium in Washington DC see here.