Coffee-house painting is oil on stretched canvas, sometimes three metres wide, hung behind a naqqal storyteller so he could point at what he was narrating. Karbala and the Shahnameh, dozens of episodes at once, every figure the same height whether near or far, every person and event named in Nastaliq.

As an interface language it inverts most modern habits. The surface is filled, not composed around whitespace. Depth is refused. Labels are content. The dark ground shows through everything painted on top of it.