November 17, 2018

Another project of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation promoting the legacy of Nizami Ganjavi – the Seven Beauties Exhibition – opens in Moscow

On November 21, the exhibition Seven Beauties will be inaugurated in the All-Russian Popular and Decorative-Applied Art Museum in Moscow. The exhibition will be held with the organizational support of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, the Culture Ministry of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Azerbaijan Carpet Museum, supported by the Embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan in the Russian Federation.

 

The concept of the exposition has been built on the poem Seven Beauties by 12th century Azerbaijani poet of genius Nizami Ganjavi, and world-renowned Azerbaijani composer Gara Garayev’s same-name ballet. At the exhibition, the Azerbaijani culture will be represented in the synthesis of carpet making art, jewellery and miniature, contemporary art, classical music, and dance.

 

The exposition will be arranged by exhibits of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, the Carpet Museum of Azerbaijan, and the Azerbaijan State Museum of Music Culture.

 

The exhibition will take visitors to the legend about Bahram Shah and seven beauties. The philosophical world of this literary work, which has played a significant role in the Azerbaijani culture, will be revived through projections of carpets, book miniatures, items of decorative and applied art, and installations.

 

Displayed at the exhibition, the installation “Miniature” has been created by Azerbaijani artist Rashad Alakbarov on the basis of the Tabriz miniature “The prince reading a book”, related to the 16th century. The idea of the composition has been built on the creation of illusion portal, which takes every visitor to the ancient world of fairy tales and legends. Here, Nizami’s poem is revived before the eyes of visitors. The miniature “The prince reading a book” is said to have been created by Sultan Mahammad, which was considered to be the peak of the Safavid’s miniature painting art at the time of Shah Tahmasib the 1st . This work is preserved in the collection of V.Vever in Paris.

 

The exposition includes scenes from the ballet Seven Beauties written by Gara Garayev to Nizami Ganjavi’s poem, as well as archive materials related to that show. The visitors would feel themselves at the scene of ballet, surrounded by ballerinas reviving Nizami’s characters.

 

The exhibition will continue until February 3rd, 2019.

 

The Heydar Aliyev Foundation has implemented a number of projects to date to immortalize the creativity of Azerbaijani poet of genius Nizami Ganjavi. They include Nizami Museum in Ganja, organization of exhibitions and conferences in France and its regions, erection of a monument to Nizami in France, laying out of the Nizami Ganjavi Garden in Saint Petersburg, publication of Nizami’s “Khamsa” in a new format – the poems “The Treasure of Secrets”, “Khosrov and Shirin”, “Leyli and Majnun”, “Seven Beauties” and “Iskandernameh” – in the Azerbaijani language in one book, and other projects.