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Lot Essay
The present work is an outstanding example from the most important series by Sohrab Sepheri, a figure who holds a unique position within modern Iranian culture, equally famous as he is for his poetry and his poignant body of paintings. The title of the work is enigmatic, but could refer either to the artist's love of Kashan (the city where he is buried) or perhaps to the strong family connection to that city of its current owners for whom it was commissioned.
The most extraordinary thing about the Trees series is the extreme economy with which Sepehri describes his subject. It is true that the forms, either attenuated or broad, resemble calligraphy, but so too are related to the misty landscapes of Japanese hand-painted scrolls. What is new about them, however, is the sheer scale of the individual features and the degree of abstraction, but above all, the way he frames the trees both within and outwith the pictoral space. He never includes the tree in its entirerity, just features of it- the trunks or the branches, or abstracted leaves. On the one hand, these elements are truncated by the picture plane; on the other, huge swathes of blank space surround them in other parts of the picture. Together these effects combine to produce a sense that his subject exists within unlimited space beyond the boundaries of the composition.
These elements of Sepehri's work demonstrate the marked influence of Japanese prototypes. Sohrab Sepheri travelled to Tokyo in 1960 and was deeply impressed by Japanese Haikus, becoming the main translator for these into Persian. Equally his painting was affected by his exposure to the work Japanese Zen masters, including Sesshu Toyo and Hakuin Ekaku. Since that time his landscapes and still lifes became minimal, meditative and often abstracted.
In the present work signs of human habitation, identified only by their window openings, are just visible through the trunks of densely-packed tree trunks. Thus nature and the manmade seemlessly blend, portrayed with a high degree of abstraction and geometrification. The result is a work which is suggestive and expressive on a number of levels through remarkably limited means.
The most extraordinary thing about the Trees series is the extreme economy with which Sepehri describes his subject. It is true that the forms, either attenuated or broad, resemble calligraphy, but so too are related to the misty landscapes of Japanese hand-painted scrolls. What is new about them, however, is the sheer scale of the individual features and the degree of abstraction, but above all, the way he frames the trees both within and outwith the pictoral space. He never includes the tree in its entirerity, just features of it- the trunks or the branches, or abstracted leaves. On the one hand, these elements are truncated by the picture plane; on the other, huge swathes of blank space surround them in other parts of the picture. Together these effects combine to produce a sense that his subject exists within unlimited space beyond the boundaries of the composition.
These elements of Sepehri's work demonstrate the marked influence of Japanese prototypes. Sohrab Sepheri travelled to Tokyo in 1960 and was deeply impressed by Japanese Haikus, becoming the main translator for these into Persian. Equally his painting was affected by his exposure to the work Japanese Zen masters, including Sesshu Toyo and Hakuin Ekaku. Since that time his landscapes and still lifes became minimal, meditative and often abstracted.
In the present work signs of human habitation, identified only by their window openings, are just visible through the trunks of densely-packed tree trunks. Thus nature and the manmade seemlessly blend, portrayed with a high degree of abstraction and geometrification. The result is a work which is suggestive and expressive on a number of levels through remarkably limited means.