The Guidance of the Goose: On Beauty in the Cairo Bustan

Publich lecture by Dorothée Kreuzer:
The spate of recent publications on late 15th century Timurid book art opens up critical space for reconsidering the conventional text-image relationship approach. A close reading of the sumptuous three double page opening sequence of the Cairo Bustan reveals the illumination program of the manuscript not only as meta-commentary to Sa’di’s text but emerges as literally pre- and pro-scriptive: showing what precedes words and a guidance to how to read the following text. Taking my cue from the unpublished double-page spread placed between the famous frontispiece and the gateway to the written text or incipit, the issue of beauty appears as the non-trivial steppingstone en route to the ineffable. Very much like the Platonic agalma as launch pad to the higher good, the intricate montage of the figures of goose and phoenix draws the reader’s attention to processes of understanding.