Images of nature in the arab miniature of the XII-XIV centuries

The article is devoted to one of the popular genres of the illustrating of medieval Arabic manuscripts. Namely, it concerns the visual interpretation of the verbal descriptions of nature, expounded both in the scientific treatises and in the literary works. Specific features of miniature paintings of this genre are largely determined by the deeply-rooted among the Middle East people perceptions of the universe as the genius creation of God. Those are two different, but inseparable and interconnected worlds, celestial and terrestrial ones, and each of them has its own functions, and each of them was populated by inhabitants of completely different appearances, types and habits. The natural (like nature itself) fusion of truth and fiction in the monuments of the verbal, oral and written culture of the Arab Middle Ages gave impetus to the appearance of visual images created by paints and lines. Their numerousness and diversity unfold a panorama of an amazing and incomprehensible world of fantasy and reality in front of the reader-spectator.