Yunus Emre

Acrylic, watercolor & gold on hand-painted paper, 55 x 80 cm, Artist’s Collection

The subject of this miniature is Yunus Emre, a Turkish folk poet and sufi dervish who lived during the 13th century, a period marked by famine and cataclysmic Mongol raids. His exquisite poems exalted the love of God, human beings, nature, animals, and tolerance. This piece illustrates lines from various Yunus Emre poems, including one about his 40-year habit of climbing a mountain to collect only absolutely straight pieces of wood. When asked why, he replied, “Only the straight and the true should enter the (sufi) lodge.”