Sinking of a book by Omar Khayyam

Sinking of a book by Omar Khayyam, a monumental composition with the artist's signature expressionist brushstrokes, depicts a sinking ship and wooden rafts on which passengers are desperately seeking rescue. Like in a modernised commedia dell'arte scene, the characters' features and expressions are exaggerated and distorted while the sense of satirical despair is accentuated by the stormy waters survivors are fighting against and the artist's swirling touches of paint in vivid hues.
Evidently depicting the sinking of the Titanic, the present work is a painterly adaptation of Amin Maalouf's part fictional part historical novel Samarkand, in which the author narrates the story about the fate of a eleventh century manuscript by Omar Khayyam. Entitled Rubaiyat, the manuscript was considered through history as a symbol of intellectual freedom in Iran and according to Maalouf, a bejewelled copy of the acclaimed manuscript disappeared during the tragic sinking of the Titanic. Through this exceptional composition, Rokni Haerizadeh thus metaphorically alludes to the sinking of free-will and freedom in his native country, Iran.
Painted in 2009 at a time when Rokni and his brother Ramin had recently exiled from their homeland to settle in Dubai, Sinking of a book by Omar Khayyam is undeniably an expression of the artist's own sense of non-belonging and desolation and as such, is an outstanding masterpiece filled with historical, cultural and personal references.