An Emaciated Horse Led by His Master

An Emaciated Horse Led by his Master

In this drawing the artist, by means of both economy and manipulation of the line, has articulated the angular protuberance and bony frame of the emaciated nag with extraordinary skill. Its ears droop with resignation and the mouth hangs open with the effort of movement. The spots of red where the birds are pecking are the only color in the drawing. The beast's erstwhile rider is also drawn with a sure, spare line. Seemingly aware of his own comparative sturdiness, he carries the saddle and other paraphernalia on his right shoulder while leaning on a staff in his left hand. The landscape is conventional, with the charming addition of an ibex, gazelle, and mountain goat in the background and a rabbit in the lower right corner, hiding behind boulders, two of which have the heavy profiles of creatures seemingly observing the scene.

The Museum has a second Persian drawing that includes an emaciated horse (45.174.23).[1] In the Pozzi Collection in Geneva there is a Persian drawing of a starving horse, alone, munching a tuft of grass; it also has a magpielike bird pecking its back.[2] Still another emaciated horse drawing, this time attributed to Rezi 'Abbasi, includes a rider in a leopard cap conversing with his pet monkey.[3] These are but a few of the various presentations of this subject.

What is the significance of the emaciated horse, and why its popularity as a subject for drawings? In Sufi terms it is among the images used for the nafs, "the lower self, the base instincts."[4] "... the restive horse or mule ... has to be kept hungry and has to undergo constant mortification and training so that, eventually, it serves the purpose of bringing the rider to his goal," that is, to God.[5] If this Sufi meaning is behind the Museum's drawing, the compassionate master trudging along and burdened by the saddle must be interpreted as sharing the mortification of his mount. Some of the other drawings of the subject seem to lack any suggestion of spiritual interpretation and have more of a genre or even humorous intent. In any case, the drawing illustrated here is one of the most sensitive and moving of the series.

[Swietochowski and Babaie 1989]

Footnotes:

1. Also in the Museum's collection (44.154) there is a Deccani Indian drawing of a horse done in the marbleized technique with an equally emaciated Majnun-like rider.

2. Blochet, Edgar. Miniatures persanes et indo-persanes. Collection Jean Pozzi. 1930, pI. XIII. Also published by Blochet is the drawing of a stumbling, broken-down nag with a man described as affected by wine about to bounce off its back; Blochet, Edgar. Les Enluminures des Manuscrits Orientaux . .. de la Bibliotheque Nationale. Paris, 1926, pI. LXXIII.

3. Welch, Anthony. Artists for the Shah: Late Sixteenth-Century Painting at the Imperial Court of Iran. New Haven and London, 1976, fig. 56.

4. Schimmel, Annemarie. Mystical Dimensions of Islam. Chapel Hill, 1975, p. 112; Schimmel, Annemarie. "Nur ein störrisches Pferd." Ex orbe Religionum, Festschrift Geo Widengren. Leiden, 1972.

5. Schimmel 1975 [note 4], p. 113.


An Emaciated Horse Led by his Master

From the moment of repentance, the first important step on the Sufi path, the believer must struggle against the nafs—the ego or carnal soul—by renouncing all wordly goods and aspirations and adopting an ascetic way of life. In Sufi poetry, the nafs takes many forms, such as that of a black dog, a fox, a mouse, a disobedient camel, or a woman who seeks to take advantage of an unsuspected traveler through seduction. It is often also represented by the metaphor of a stubborn horse that must constantly be starved and humiliated in order to become sufficiently trained and obedient so that it transports its rider to the desired destination.

The image of a rider leading a horse was a popular subject for illustration in sixteenth-century Iran, symbolizing the Sufi's approach toward their base instincts, which must be trained and guided rather than eliminated so that they might become "useful tools in the service of God."[64] In this drawing a rider with a staff leads an emaciated horse through a rocky landscape speckled with vegetation, as three ibexes stand behind the hills in the background. A pair of birds pecks at the poor animal's bony back, which appears too weak to bear even the weight of the saddle, now carried by his master. Without the rider, compared by the revered Sufi mystic Rumi to the light of God, the horse (or nafs) would be lost: "The sensuous eye is the horse, and the Light of God is the rider: without the rider the horse itself is useless. Therefore train the horse of bad habits; else the horse will be rejected before the king."[65]

The image of the starving horse was a familiar one in seventeenth-century India, where it was frequently illustrated by Mughal as well as Deccani artists. Sometimes the animal appears alone, without a rider, as in a small but precious tinted drawing in the Brooklyn Museum (no. 40.372). The creature's wasted state is conveyed with an almost painful naturalism from its exposed rib cage to the few hairs remaining on its mane and tail. In both the MMA and Brooklyn Museum drawings, light washes of color are used to provide the bare minimum of gradation, drawing more attention instead to the outlines of the figures and the horses' bodies. The association of the lean horse with struggle and sacrifice likewise found parallels in the images and ideas of eastern cultures: in Tang China (618–907), for example, the emaciated horse symbolized the official who sacrificed himself in the service of the state, in contrast to the fat horse, which represented the self-indulgent official who abused his position for his own benefit. Such images probably reached the Islamic world at a higher rate through cross-cultural connections resulting from the Mongol invasion of the thirteenth century.

Ladan Abarnia in [Akbarnia and Leoni 2010]

Footnotes:

64. Schimmel, Annemarie, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975, pp. 112–13.

65. From the Masnavi-yi Ma'navi II, cited in Grace D. Guest and Richard Ettinghausen, "The Iconography of a Kashan Luster Plate," Ars Orientalis 4, 1981, p. 62.

George D. Pratt, New York (by 1933–d. 1935); Vera Amherst Hale Pratt, New York (life interest 1935–45)

de Young Museum, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. "Exhibition of Islamic Art," February 24, 1937–March 22, 1937, no. 70.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Persian Drawings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 13–December 31, 1989, no. 13.

New York. Brooklyn Museum. "Light of the Sufis : an introduction to the mystical arts of Islam," June 5, 2009–September 6, 2009, no. 15a.

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. "Light of the Sufis : an introduction to the mystical arts of Islam," May 16, 2010–August 8, 2010, no. 15a.

Toronto. Aga Khan Museum. "In Search of the Artist," September 1, 2014–November 16, 2014, no catalogue.

Aga-Oglu, Mehmet. "M. H. De Young Memorial Museum, February 24 to March 22, 1937." In Exhibition of Islamic Art. San Francisco, 1937. no. 70, p. 35, ill.

Swietochowski, Marie, and Sussan Babaie. Persian Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1989. no. 13, pp. 36–37, ill. pl. 13 (b/w).

Akbarnia, Ladan, and Francesca Leoni. "The Mystical Arts of Islam." In Light of the Sufis. Houston: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2010. no. 15a, pp. 48–49, ill. p. 49 (color).