Manifestations of Iran and Europe Cultural and Artistic Relations in the Safavid Era

Reports point out that during diplomatic contacts and trade ties between Iranand the West during the Safavid era, cultural and artistic exchanges have alsooccurred, whose scope though was not vast. These travels and the traveloguereports resulting thereof, have reflected the various dimensions of the Iraniancivilizational aspects and introduced them to the Europeans; as they have alsorevealed some of the civilizational aspects of Europe to Iran for comparision andadaptation sake. The goal of this paper is looking into the manifestations andforms of cultural and artistic interactions between Iran and Europe during theSafavid era, using the descriptive-analytical method. The findings of the researchindicate that the expansion of Iran/Europe ties in this period, also trigerred somesorts of cultural and artistic interaction, leading to Iranians getting familiar withsome of the Europeans cultural and artistic aspects in painting, music, and otherspheres and this made some developments in the Iranian culture and art. TheEuropeans, have also been active in these spheres and in scientific dialogues,translation of some literary works to the European languages, transfering of theIranian artistic works and reflection of the Iranian lifestyle and civilization to theEuropeans.