What a tiny masterpiece reveals about power and beauty | Hacker News Reader

What a tiny masterpiece reveals about power and beauty

nytimes.com

120 pointsdilawar52 comments

A few more notable Indo-Persian miniatures:

A page from the Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp, one of the most magnificent and fully-realized illustrated manuscripts in the tradition. Made in the workshops of the Iranian Savafids, contemporaries of the Mughals.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/The_Cour...

A portrait of Malik Amber, taken as a child from Ethiopia and raised in Yemen, rose to the prime ministership of a major sultanate in the Deccan - he was a major thorn in the side of Mughal emperor Jahangir because of his effective use of guerrilla tactics to evade conquest.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/Malik_am...

The painting traditions weren't only sponsored by Muslim empires, but also regional courts, such as those in the Pahari hills in the north of India, from where arose Nainsukh, a court painter for a minor raja known for his delicate lines and flat spaces. The man on the left is the raja himself, subdued by the divinity of Radha and Krishna.

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/38009

I know the religious art influence from europe is explored in this but it is really striking how much it reminds me of a byzantine christian icon.

The simple full-body centering of the single figure, the use of color, the unnatural but symbolism-heavy pose. I don't know much about art honestly but something about the light also seems that way. Later catholic and I think russian? style icons became more realistic and don't have that look.

The halo too but that's less interesting to me than the feel of the whole thing which is very icon-like.

Love these scroll-zoom format articles from NYTimes that go through a work of art in detail. I always learn something interesting.

Here are two others i've enjoyed: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/25/arts/durer-se...

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/07/arts/design/h...

I wonder what web tool they use to make them ?

The guy who makes a lot of their dataviz is famously the creator of Svelte.

Back in the early 90's I did 12 art history documentaries in a Ken Burns style very much like this article. The documentaries were still images with hot spots for navigation that triggered voice overs of with zooms on details, with an easily recognized voice doing the narration (I think we used Liev Schreiber).

These were pre-CD-ROM interactive discs called CD-I, a failed interactive hybrid between CDROMS and laserdiscs from Philips.

This website itself is a work of art.

The DOM is a modern day canvas.

Mughals were famous for having very cool names.

Akbar - means son of God

Shah Jahan - king of the world

Alamgir - One who snatched the world for himself

Shah Alam - king of the universe

Bahadur Shah Zafar - Brave, victorious King

To add: these were regnal names, taken after their ascension to the throne. For example, Jahangir was known as Salim before becoming emperor.

One can only wonder what Mirza Dara Sukoh would have called himself.

Akbar means Big or Bigger, not the Son of God.

Asghar on the other hand means Small or Smaller.

Alam means world/universe so these make sense though.

Hmm, you are right. Akbar is "great", "big" etc.

I know the Padshah was also called "Shadow of God on Earth" - do you happen to know the Farsi for that?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padishah

I speak Urdu being from Pakistan and don't know much Persian apart from what I learnt as a kid.

I wonder if there is any open source frontend library to make such interactive mobile friendly experiences?

Yeah, VanillaJS is perfect for this.

Works perfectly with https://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ platform too.

I'm impressed this works so well on mobile.

> Now, it belongs to the Metropolitan Museum of Art

How did it come into their possession, I would be interested to hear.

I have to say this is a great way of highlighting details in the paintings.

Small bits of text explaining things, zoom in the detail that the reader would probably not catch.

Nicely done, although the subscribe overlay pitch kind of ruined it.

I did feel like as a piece (the website not the painting) it lacked context - why am i looking at this and to what end? Is this a short thing i can scroll through or is this something i shouldn't look at unless i can dedicate half an hour? Sort of like being dropped into the middle of a museum without knowing what the topic of the exhibit is.

That seemed interesting but it was too much work. Why is there so much scrolling for each bit of text?

I felt that highlighting the particular subtlety and detail of each portion of the painting by zooming in was useful. The fact that the painting was so intricately detailed results in a lot of points of interest.

I stopped scrolling, it lacked usability with those small bits of text which wouldn't even snap to be centered.

It's hard to tell how this could be made better. Tooltips on markers would increase control, but the story would lose linearity.

I viewed this on a desktop rather than a phone. The PgDn key worked pretty well, though the text didn't always end up in the same vertical position. Sometimes I had to hit the down arrow key a few times afterwards.

Wouldn't a "Next" button do pretty much the same thing, though?

I agree, I felt as if I had a personal museum guide, and I was allowed to zoom in and out at will. My only complaint is the quality of the reproductions, it's a shame not to enjoy the brushstrokes.

The artists used Squirrel hair as brushes.

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away

Will be true eventually, but Shah Jahan’s works include the Taj Mahal which is one of the signal achievements of mankind.

And Ozymandias himself is Ramesses II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozymandias#Origin , so in reality his posthumous recognition will probably last for a long time yet.

It’s a fascinating article and a beautiful piece of art.

Holy crap what an awful way to present information.

I completely agree - this is absolutely horrendous to consume and I'd like to see someone defend it since you were downvoted.

1. Complete loss of relative positioning. Additionally no idea where the beginning or end is.

2. Nauseating due to having to eye-track moving boxes and scroll behaviour.

3. Takes way longer to read as a result.

Not the first time nytimes has given a tongue bath to a genocidal maniac.

Presumably the gloriousness of any emperor, from any empire we care to name, was bought with the blood of masses of peasants and weaker neighbors? Looking over the list[1] I don't see anything surprising.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shah_Jahan#Reign_(1628%E2%80%9...

Oh please. Just admire something for what it is.

Please don't post unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to HN. It's not what this site is for, because it makes interesting topics more boring and much nastier.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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