A Critical Review on the Book “Persian Art”

The history of Persian art is replete with many unique artworks and fine artifacts today reserved inside and outside Iran. Enjoying certain historical and cultural features, such works of art and other traditional handicrafts could be categorized in different groups. Despite large-scale production and vast artistic movements, Persian art had not been recorded in an academic, scholarly manner just until the Qajar period. Before this event, the accounts and records left from art of Persia were just limited to artists, not artworks and the related categories. With regard to this shortage, Persian Art would be considered as the first independent research done by a Scot named Sir Robert Murdoch Smith in a period when there was rarely, if any recognition of art and artworks. This book was composed in the Qajar period for the purpose of introducing Persian arts to the South Kensington (now Victoria & Albert) Museum, England. Although some sections and subjects of the book seems quite evident today, or may need revision, it contains some invaluable ideas and information from that time. Furthermore, the book could be regarded as a pioneer in the study of Orientalism which forms the basis of a more extended field, i.e. Islamic art.