GG Saidov

Jamshid Saidov paints Persianate miniatures with a brush of a single hair, illuminating manuscript scenes a hand-span wide that take a season each, a tradition he studied for seven years under a master in Isfahan before bringing it home. Museums buy the work; conversation he considers optional. Every loss gets one sentence. Written the same night in the back of the same notebook, numbered, never revised and never reread, because the writing is the part that does the work and the reading would only be comfort. There are two hundred and six of them. He plays slowly and commits each move like a stroke that cannot be lifted, and finishes a match the way he finishes a miniature, without a flourish.