Mohammad Ehsai

(Iran, born 1939)

Yaquin Al Saqi (Absolute Certainty)

Footnotes

Provenance:
Property from a private collection, London

Exhibited:
Beirut, Rose Issa Projects,Zendegi: Twelve Contemporary Iranian Artists, Beirut Exhibition Centre, 2011

Published:
Rose Issa Projects,Zendegi: Twelve Contemporary Iranian Artists, Beyond Art Publications, 2011

Mohammad Ehsai is undoubtedly one of the most gifted calligraphers to emerge from Iran within the past century. Utterly devoted to the perfection of his craft, Ehsai has married the technical finesse of his formal training within a modern visual schema.

Traditional Persian calligraphy has historically been rife with ornament and embellishment; with calligraphic texts often accompanied by miniature paintings, encased in cartouches and flanked by a myriad of geometrical and floral motifs. Ehsai's approach to the craft, however, is markedly divergent, and in choosing the pure architecture of the Persian letterform as his principal subject matter, he relinquishes the visual excess of traditional manuscript art.

The depiction of unadorned script against a monochromatic, often black background not only shifts the focus of the viewer onto the mechanics and minutia of the letter-form, but forces the writing to compensate for the now absent decorative elements. Ehsai's text is therefore magnified, monumental, and versatile, filling the empty spaces his text flows with a new found freedom, taking lifelike, prehensile shapes as Ehsai demonstrates the suppleness and elasticity of Persian nast'aliq.

What resulted from Ehsai's revision of calligraphic art was a simple but unique visual language, through enlargement, repetition, contrast and layering his works assumed an almost architectural and fractal quality. Ehsai's script not only displays an aesthetic harmony, but through its tremendous intricacy, imitates the unfathomable nature of the divine. Ultimately, Ehsai's contorted letter forms are not written to be understood, emphasizing the ineffability of the deity itself.

The present painting is a brilliant example of Ehsai's work in an impressive scale. A master of his craft, Ehsai's bold, striking work is the modern standard-bearer for an artistic tradition spanning over one thousand years.