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Iranian Art

Iran represents one of the most deep-rooted, forlorn and original civilizations of the world and as such, could be regarded as one of the most wonderful cradles, which contributed to the human culture. As witnessed by the ancient vestiges, man has from time immemorial inhabitant our country. Indeed, many mounds, megalithic structures and signs of primitive civilization bear testimony to the dwelling of our ancestors in the paleo-and Neolithic era.

However, the origin of the true inhabitants who bestowed their name on the country proper dates back to 3,000 years B.C. when the Aryans, a branch of Indo-Europeans, on their long trek from central Asia, reached this verdant country and chose to settle down. This primitive colony grew, in the course of history, to such levels of Excellency that over shadowed its neighboring, mostly more ancient, tribes. However, and as the result of many vicissitudes, our country knew many conquerors and invaders; Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane and many others. But she had the merit to stand up once again and the engulf and assimilate the conquerors.

Iran, today, occupies only a minor part of the vast territories she occupied at the onset of our written history. Known as the Great Iran to the unanimous community of the orientalists, the country extended in the form of a high plateau from Tigris in the west to Indus to the west and from the Caspian lowlands in the north to the Persian Gulf coastline in the south. The Iranian plateau, linking Asia to Europe and Africa, occupies a central position of the prime importance, not only on the geographical point of view, but in the course of the world history, too.

Iran is approximately located from 25 degrees up to 40 degrees north latitude and 44 up to 63.5-east longitude from the Greenwich Meridian. So all of her land is located on the North Temperate Zone, in southwest of Asia and in the Middle East. The area of Iran today, is 1,648,000 square kilometers, representing about two-thirds of the great plateau of Iran and one twenty-fifth of the continent of Asia.  

More than half of the land of Iran is covered by high mountains, most of which is compromised by two chains the “Alborz” and the Zagros”. An equivalent to a quarter of Iran’s land is desert and 7.7% of her area is covered by beautiful verdant woodland. “Damavand”, with a height of some 5,671 meters is the highest peak in the Alborz chain. This extinct volcano looks similar to Fujiyama in Japan and has special place in ancient literature and pottery of Iran.

Tehran, the capitol city of Iran lies on the slopes of this huge mountain in the Alborz chain. The Caspian Sea is in the north of Iran with an area of 43,400 square kilometers, and is the largest lake on earth, so it is rightly called a sea. The perimeter of the Caspian Sea is 6,379 kilometers, the southern coast of which stretches down to a width of only 5 kilometers, is in the segment of Iranian waters. The Persian Gulf to the south of Iran is eventually joined the free waters through Hormoz strait, and has a great importance from a stretigical point of view.

The Persian Gulf is one of the oldest waterways exploited by man from time immemorial; its area up to the Hormoz strait is 232,850 square kilometers. It stretches one thousand kilometers from ‘Arvand Rood (the Arvand River) down to the mouth of the Hormoz strait, embracing the southwestern coast of Iran. Iran consists of 24 provinces, 195 towns and cities and 500 districts, the population in Iran, according to the latest census, is 60 million people.

Iran’s neighbors are the former Soviet republics in the north, Afghanistan and Pakistan to the west, Turkey and Iraq to the west and Arab sheikhdoms beyond the coastline of the Persian Gulf to the south. The government of Iran is an Islamic Republic and her formal religion is Islam; 98% of the people of Iran are Muslim, of which 91% are Shi’ite. The current language and writing in Iran is Farsi (Persian).

The most famous religious minorities are Zozoastrian, Armenian Christians and Hebrews. From ancient time up to present, different races like Lor, Kurd, Turk, Ghilak, Baluch and many other tribes have lived in third ancient land, and have played a valuable role in establishing civilization of the modern world is indebted.

The Iranian art in the passage of history

By virtue of its strategic geographical position out country has from time immemorial been melting pot where the repercussions of other civilizations merge into the purification, embellishing, and exultation of the Iranian art. Indeed, gateway to the passage of Eastern and Western conquerors, Iran has had the merit to mingle the different cultures and civilizations and to create new, unsurpassed expressions of the arts. The interior of the country, too, has since bygone ages left its masterful impression on the Iranian art. The majestic, lofty mountainous chains have not only sheltered the prehistoric people, but have reduced them to a silent and pleasant way of life, most favorable to them meditation and imagination.

Archaeological excavations carried out along the two mountainous ranges of the country (Zagros and Alborz), have unearthed masterpieces of cave paintings, household and metal utensils, pottery, instruments of warfare and agriculture implements. Zagros mountain chain harbors one of the most ancient civilizations of Iran, i.e. Luristan. Major hallmarks of this series of civilizations like Asianiques, Kassites, etc are represented by nomadic people who were originally engaged in hunting and fishing, but in the course of time shifted to farming and husbandry.

The Lyristan art reached the zenith of its splendor around 3,000 B.C. and lasted up to the first millennium B.C. Reflected in pottery and metalwork, it reached such a height of excellence uncommon to the neighboring civilizations. This is in fact to such an extent characteristic that some archaeologists believe the art of Luristan is the real and genuine art of Iran.

Alborz rane, too, has impressed ancient Iranian art with its marks of nobility. Indeed, since foreign ages, the northern slopes of this range, located in now Gilan and Mazandaran provinces, were, the homeland for a brilliant civilization. The precedence of metal utensils from “Marlik”, which have been discovered in a hill with the same name in “Roudbar”, is about three thousand years before Christ. These utensils, which had been made and ornamented with gold, silver and metal, introduce the art of a race that the archaelogicalists believe “they have joined other groups pf Indo-European, who lived on the Iranian plateau and established the powerful Median Empire in Iran at the beginning of the first millennium before Christ.

At the edge of the central desert of Iran, near “Kashan” and in a district called “Sialk”, traces of the first people’s residence have been found in the central plain of the Iran. Excavated objects in “Sialk” graveyard symbolize the artistry of the prehistoric people in Iran. “Sialk” dwellers made all their tools and instruments of stone, but gradually they started to use metal to make their implements. The artistic taste of these people is found through engravings on bones, which had been carried out for the first time, and also through the designs on their pottery.

In a map of the plateau of Iran drawn by L. Can den Bergh, archeologist and professor of Brussels University; special signs registered most of the historical and ancient area of Iran. In the map, hardly any areas of the plateau of Iran can be seen which has no sign of one or more kinds of arts. The plurality of ancient reference to all of them is impossible in a brief report.

“At the beginning of the first millennium before Christ, there had been extensive exchanged between northwestern civilizations of Iran, like Caucasus and the east part of Anatoli”. This cultural process is known as the Urartu’s civilization. Wolfram Kleiss, German archaeologist, has made a lot of valuable surveys about Urartu’s civilization in provinces like “Azerbaijan”, “Isfahan”, “Shiraz”, and suburbs of Tehran since 1971. These surveys conducted in different exploration, parts of which consist of castles and fortifications of this civilization and valuable artistic works of dwellers in this part of Iran. One of the oldest remnants of Urartu is the remains of “Bastam Castle” around the “Rezaeyle Lake” in the western Azerbaijan. This castle consists of rooms, cellars, guarding towers, gates and other installation. Two water mills were discovered which worked by the waterflow of a river nearby.

In excavations at this prehistoric castle, objects have been found like flint necklaces, glass rings, bronze hopps, clay stamps, different arms and pottery items which symbolize the skill of the first dwellers of northwest Iran. The most important work explored in this castle is an epigraph in a hieroglyphic script, indication that Urartu’scivilization had special writing characters”.

Archaeologists have found different remains of native Persian art belonging to prehistoric times and late. Explorations at “Hassanlu fortress”, southeast of “Urumia Lake” (Rezaeiye Lake) “Ziwiye” in Kurdistan (a province in the west), “Mark Hill” at the foot of “Alborz”, “Siraft Port” on the coast of the Persian Gulf and “Shahdad-e-Kerman” in the central desert of Iran, have uncovered many highly valuable treasures. Some of these great artistic treasures are kept in museums in Iran, but Persian has carried out most of these artworks and foreign experts and studies are still being continued on other remaining works.

Generally speaking, archaeological explorations, which have been carried out since one hundred years ago, have given answers to the majority of questions about the history of civilization and art of Iran to scientists and scholars in art. The point is that the Persian art, no matter to which historic era it belongs, reflects a desire and special morale of the people of Iran. It also symbolizes superiority in taste and creativity of the civilization of Iran.

In some epochs especially after the coming into existence of the great empires, powerful kings, rulers and commanders, used different arts yet they reflect the principles and virtues of the simple dwellers of the land. The important point in studying the historic process of art in Iran is the variation of artworks in different epochs, This shows that Iranians have been versed and skilled in certain fields of activity from ancient times. For example in architecture, we are introduced to the building decorated by plaster moldings, stone engraving, drawings and even primary painting belonging to prehistoric era.

Architecture, in different ages, since the begining of the Median Empire and thereafter has noticeably been developing and acquiring more magnificence. Continuing the historic process, architecture in the Islamic era, furnished by Sassinad style, had acquired such brilliance, which could not have been found in most points of the world. At the same epoch, Muslim Persian artists created tile work, arched decorative scripts and different magnificent colorful designs in religious localities and constructions,

The development of other arts, like glasswork, textured metalwork painting, pottery, and other most native arts of Iran, took place sometimes periodically and sometimes steadfastly. Different historic events like wars, conquests, foreign invasions, the decline of ruling dynasties, and even famine, drought and natural calamities like great earthquakes, had their impact on art in different eras. Yet in spite of these events, the foundation of Persian though for creating artworks has not been spoiled by any means. For example at the beginning of Arab, Mongol, and Timurid Invasions, art in Iran faced stagnation but never stopped.

Astonishingly, after a while the invaders themselves were so strongly influenced by the art of Iran and the artistic virtues and interests of the Persians, that their thought and deeds, underwent through transformation. Any study on the process of the transformation of art in Iran, requires attention to be paid to different points, which is unfortunately disregarded by some foreign scholars. But some valid archaeologists have drawn guidelines for the process, based on history, and evaluated the art of Iran, in their comprehensive, detailed research. 

Among famous archaeologists, who have worked and studied the art of Iran, there are some who have international fame and drawn up a historical chart of process of Iranian art evolution in the light of different evidences. Professor Andre Godard is one of these scientific figures, which has conducted detailed studies on artworks in Iran and has written many valuable essays and books on the above-mentioned topic. Historic tables help us become acquainted with the history of the artistic events of a country and also provide primary information about the formation and the process of arts evolutions. Here we refer to a summarized historical table of Iranian art drawn by Godard.

It must be mentioned that regarding the explorations of the other archaeologist, additional points should be added to it. 1. In the fifth millennium before Christ (4-5,00 B.C.), native races in Iran, who used to spend winter in natural shelters and during summer lived in cottages covered by foliage, thereafter started to build earthen dwellings and also added cultivation to hunting and fishing. Stone tools started to be improved and were perfected by adding handles of bone; earthen utensils were painted by black on a red base and baked in fire.

During 4,000 B.C., dwellers in Zagros and the plateau of Iran established villages and so little by little started living collectively. Agriculture and animal husbandry were improved. Gradually, the art of architecture came into existence. In this era there were still stone arms. But at the end of this age came metal swords and daggers and epigraphs with primary Elamite script on them. 

3. In 3,000 B.C, marble white stones, tar and other kinds of stone were used to make artistic objects. Dark blue colored and coal like pottery was used widely, metal weapons were used in different parts of Iran. Like Susa and Nahavand Cultures, using gold, carnelian and lapis lazuli made different ornaments.

4. In the second millennium B.C., the most important even in this era was the coming of “Aryans” to the plateau of Iran when metal art received much importance. The smoothening of blue pottery was propagated in the “Alborz” and its neighboring regions glorious building were made with brick or baked earthen walls decorated by painting with designs like Geminis, humans, trees and other figures. Urbanism was developed and stone engraving came in another step of progress, which rendered Susa its incomparable beauty. In this age, races like the Aryans, Medians and Persians were settled in Zagros.

5. The first thousand years B.C., Godard called the first part of this age “ The dark stage of the prehistoric age”. The reason behind it was the inaccessibility of archaeological documents at the time in support of this stage. But new findings shed new lights on the developments within the fist thousand years B.C.

There were living wealthy herdsmen and farmers on the slope of the Alborz during this age. There have been valuable tools and pottery excavated in the graves there, also remnants has been found belonging to the first thousand years, B.C. in Luristan, Kurdistan and Rezaeiye.

6. In the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., because of dense new immigrations, mixed races settled on the plateau of Iran, consisting of Scythians, Urartus, Mannnals, Kassites, Medians and Persians. Finally the Achaemnid Empire came into existence and because of its centralized organization, Iran entered a historical age. From then on, one can study dated art of Iran and survey the impact of prehistoric art on that. Epigraphs with the scripts of the languages Persian, Elmatie and Akadian have remained from the Achaemenid era and are valuable documents showing the glory and splendor of the Iranian art. Later historical ages of Iranian art can be summarized as follows.