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The Iranian Miniature is one of the most important sub branches of the Islamic Arts. In spite of the significance of its figurative, symbolic and content aspects, there are a series of confusing ambiguities about it.
It is possible to classify the above mentioned ambiguities into three classes:
The ambiguities of the history of art related to Miniature.
The visual and formalistic ambiguities of Miniature.
The ambiguities related to the theoretical origin of Miniature.
Of the three, the third one is chosen to be discussed in this research. By examination of the miniature painted scenes of the first
meeting of Khosro and Shirin and Shirin’s death, based on the story of Nezami’s Khosro and Shirin , some aspects of form and content of Iranian Miniature will be put into discussion. A study of the scenes reveals that the motif of “Love, a spiritual love, is embedded in the scenes as an independent variable so that it would incline the visual and content elements from concrete and exoteric, realistic and natural planes to esoteric ones. It is through this that the incomparable and the unattainable notions, concealed deep in the scenes, are revealed.