Mosul School

Mosul school, in painting, a style of miniature painting that developed in northern Iraq in the late 12th to early 13th century under the patronage of the Zangid dynasty (1127–1222).

In technique and style the Mosul school was similar to the painting of the Seljuq Turks, who controlled Iran at that time, but the Mosul artists emphasized subject matter and degree of detail rather than the representation of three-dimensional space. Most of the Mosul iconography was Seljuq—for example, the use of figures seated cross-legged in a frontal position. Certain symbolic elements, such as the crescent and serpents, derived, however, from the classical Mesopotamian repertory.

Most Mosul paintings were illustrations of manuscripts—predominantly scientific works, animal books, and lyric poetry. A frontispiece painting (National Library, Paris) from a late 12th-century copy of Galen’s medical treatise the Kitāb al-diryāq (“Book of Antidotes”) is a good example of the earlier work of the Mosul school. It depicts four figures surrounding a central seated figure who holds a crescent-shaped halo. By the 13th century the Baghdad school, which combined the styles of the Syrian and early Mosul schools, had begun to surpass them in popularity. With the invasion of the Mongols in the mid-13th century, the Mosul school came to an end, but its achievements were influential in both the Mamluk and Mongol schools of miniature painting. For more information on the schools of miniature painting in Islamic art during this period, see Islamic arts: Visual arts.