Sohrab Sepehry The Poet of Images and the Painter of Extemporaneous Pictures     One of the most acclaimed Iranian artists of the present era, Sohrab Sepehri was born in 1929 in the beautiful city of Kashan, on the border of the Great Iranian desert. He passed away in Tehran in the year 1980 and, as per his will, was buried in a village. His poems have been published in eight books; the most famous of which is named “Hajm Sabz” (The Green Volume). Later, he compiled his entire works in one collection and published it as “Hasht Ketab” (Eight Books).   He learnt painting at the College of Fine Arts of the University of Tehran and, as a subjective artist, was always alternating between poetry and painting to an extent that his poems were similar to painting and his paintings similar to poetry. Sepehri’s pomes have an emotional and profound influence. A specialty of his poems is their indifference to dominant socio-political events of the time. Even though some contemporary artists have criticized him from this point of view, yet with the tranquility of the social conditions, no sign of those earlier excitements remained. Gradually the attention of the Iranian youths was attracted towards his poems so much so that, within a short period of time, Sepehri was transformed to a great poet who no longer lived in his era. Both, in his poems as well as paintings, Sepehri looked towards nature, illustrating it in one word or in one line without entering into details. Experts in poetry believe that he was deeply influenced by Nima Ushij, the founder of neoteric poetry in Iran.   There’s a city beyond the seas where all the windows open to illumination and where the roofs host pigeons that stare at the fountains of human intelligence and where each ten-year old a branch of inner knowledge the city-dwellers contemplate a mud wall with appreciation, as if it were some flame, or a delicate dream. There, the earth listens to the music of your feeling and the wind brings you the sound of mythical birds fluttering their wings. Beyond the seas, there’s a city, there the sun shines as widely as the eyes of early-risers. His inclination in portraying the surroundings is inspired by the effects of European poetry on the neoteric Iranian poetry. Because of the proximity of his poetic language to the colloquial language, his poems are considered among the Iranian poetry that can be easily translated into other languages. In the style of painting, he was influenced by Westerners. Later, with a brush that can be defined as extemporary painting, he painted scenery, desert views, gardens, valleys, water eroded mountain creeks, rocks, geometrical designs, squares and tree trunks. He avoided perspectives in his works and similar to Japanese paintings, he eluded subjects. Sepehri had a Chinese-Japanese approach towards nature, and for long he was also inspired by short Japanese poems (hycoha) in his poetic language. All said and done, Sepehri is the greatest contemporary poet of Iran and we can dare to state that few have portrayed nature, in words and in color, as skillfully as Sepehri.