نشریه هنرهای صناعی ایران
سال دوم شماره 1 (پیاپی 3، پاییز و زمستان 1397)

Crafts masters have been trying to train good and committed artists by providing facilities and using suitable space. But it seems impossible to achieve this if not paying attention to the basic needs in the field of handicrafts education. In this study we will try to explain these basic needs in crafts education to determine that this issue is very important. This study seeks answering this question: Apart from teaching technical subjects and art, what should the students of crafts be taught to produce works enjoying cultural enrichment and originality?
One of God’s traditions is that of the Divine Guidance. In this tradition, God guides all human beings to the right path. One of the tools He uses in this respet is the natural spirit or innate disposition. Natural spirit is present in all human beings. Nature is very considerable when we are seeking perfection. Perfection undoutedly has many effects, ranging from physical to spiritual and mystical. Beauty is a kind of perfection. That’s why man is always looking for beauty. God has given man the power of understanding beauty through the tradition of divine guidance. The man who is in search of true beauty is actually in search of God. “God is beautiful and loves beauty”. Art is the creation of beauty. The artist is the creator of beauty. The role of nature is very important in this respect. Considering nature would link beauty with God. God attracts man to himself by beauty and one of the best manifestations of it is to be found in the art crafts.
Investigating the practical aspects of the subject of natural spirit gives more attention to the subject of perfection. The study of perfectionism leads to the discussion of aesthetics and the conceptual relationship between God and the perceived beauty that makes it necessary to understand the concept of nature in art. There are many benefits to the companionship of the natural spirit and the crafts that would promote both and it can bring about brilliant results in enhancing the quality and spirituality of traditional arts and crafts.
In fact, it seems necessary for students of the handicrafts to learn, besides technical education courses in their curriculum, basic intellectual and spiritual education as well. As mentioned, the natural spirit is in good harmony with the subject of art and beauty, especially in the branch of  crafts, and can be fruitful for many reasons too. It seems that understaning the nature and perfection and their place in art would be very useful for students to know how to communicate between craft works and the audience.
In this qualitative study cross-sectional methods are used, and data has been acquired through library sources and by field study .The case studies have been selected for non-random and they have been based on coordination with research objectives and hypotheses. The results of the research predicts that: Teaching the natural spirit, perfection and their application in art to the students would affect the appearance of handicrafts. These changes can be spiritual and positive for this field.

The establishment of Safavid dynasty in Iran and the prevalence of etiquettes attributed to Sufis required making kashkuls (Sufi begging bowl), as one of the qalandars’ and dervishes’ instruments used at ceremonies and related events of such a sect. The purpose of this study is to study the form and content of 34 metal kashkuls from the Safavid as well as the following era, Qajar. Here there are some questions to answer: What kind of interaction exists between the decorative elements of such kashkuls and the dervishes’ manners? And how are the metal kashkuls from these eras made in terms of form, function and symbol? Data of the present research has been gathered from library sources and by referring and accessing to the world museums’ sites as well as visiting national museums inside. The results are as follows: Dervishes always carried kashkul for making request from others while they sang mystic poems in markets and alleys, which were considered both a Sufi propaganda and an experience of self-humiliation. The costly kashkuls, including metal types, carried symbolic, ritual, and decorative aspects. Early samples were made of natural material. Later, other forms, including the metal type, became popular.
Besides being regarded as the instruments of dervishes and qalandars, Kashkuls have also been used at Ashura (tenth day of Muharram month) as well as in the water-carrying ritual and mourning ceremonies of this historical event. In the dervishes’ poems, kashkul is related to Abbas ibn-e Ali, a standard bearer (flag bearer) in Karbala. It is also used in mourning ceremonies relating to the same water-carrying ritual. Some poems on kashkuls have direct reference to water-carrying and the blessing of drinking water from the instrument. Furthermore, in both two eras, water-carrying in traditional Iraq was common to Sufism. 
It is to be mentioned that there were three forms of kashkul in terms of appearance in the Safavid and Qajar era: 1. Those inspired by the plant type (coco de mer fruit); 2. Those in the form of a vessel (ship); 3. The ones which are distinctive in their overall form and unique decorations. They have been decorated with pictogram inscriptions, Shiite themes and Persian poems.  These Kashkuls are engraved with a variety of inscriptions including surahs or selected Quranic verses, Salavāt-e Tafziliyyah (praising and greeting of the Fourteen Innocent Imams) indicating the Shiite tendencies, Persian poetic verses relating to honor the dervishes’ believes and Kashkul’s maker, as well as other poems on the function of the instrument in carrying water. They also have historical inscriptions which refer to the maker and the making date. 

Decorative ornaments on Kashkuls include human, geometric, zoomorphic and vegetal designs. The techniques used here are etching, niello, gold blocking of steel, engraving, latticework and inlay with symbols such as dragons, ships, fish and snakes. Furthermore, the ship or vessel, which is the general form of some Kashkuls, has been inspired by the hadith of the Noah's ship (the Rescue Ship) mentioned in the Sufi texts in this way. Some motifs such as dragons, fish and snakes are also to be found in the pre-Islamic or Islamic times, or we can consider the implications of such artistic inspirations taking their semantic aspects in literature and mysticism into consideration. It indicates that such elements and subjects have been influential on the beliefs and ideals of dervishes.

In every culture and civilization, there is a fundamental, basic art medium on which other arts would be created. Different arts are produced for different purposes. Some could be considered as the origin, and some derived from and influenced by others. In Iran the foundation of many arts is known as poetry and this realm plays the role of the basic art in the creation of other fields and media. Among various arts, painting has a lot to do with poetry. In fact, painting is one of the art media enjoying a long-standing connection with poetry. Among the works of painting, the role of romantic stories is outstanding, of which the story of “Khosrow and Shirin” compiled by Hakim Nizami Ganjavi is one of the most famous ones. Nezami Ganjavi, the most famous poet in composing romantic stories, narrates the story of Khosrow and Shirin with mysterious elements with each word carrying different connotation to the audience. Verses in the poem of Khosrow and Shirin convey cryptic remarks, so in order to get the true meaning, they need to be carefully interpreted and analyzed, especially if a long history has passed since the creation of the work. 
This paper explores the relevance and the extent of influence of the art of painting and poetry. It has extracted descriptions relating to the clothing of the main characters of the story of Khosrow and Shirin from the poetry, comparing which with the clothing of related paintings. Ultimately, by obtaining and using the results, it has been tried to answer the question: What is the influence of painting (the subordinate art) on poetry (basic art)? In this study data collecting method is documentation with the help of library sources. Furthermore, descriptive-analytical method is also applied to formulate it. It appears that the artist has illustrated the poet’s descriptions after reading the poem. In the present article, Khosrow and Shirin’s clothing is derived from what is inferred from the military system and then, by comparing the paintings of Khosrow and Shirin in the works of painting from the 8th to the 11th centuries AH (14th and 17th centuries AD), the results are presented.
Here among the points of interest in the poet’s mind when describing the clothing of Khosrow and Shirin, some material of the textiles has been expressed. Such fabrics include parand (painted silk), parnyān (shot silk), diba (fine silk), fur, khārā (moire), harir (silk cloth), ghasab (fine linen cloth) and zar (gold). Yellow, red, black, purple and blue have been selected as dominant colors in here. Furthermore, for the design, some elements such as hat, qabā (long garment for men), belt, salab, shaqāyeq, turban, tarāz, me’jar (veil), scarf, burqa’ (face veil), mask; and for jewelry, other things like rings, earrings, khalkhāl (anklet), necklaces, naqshdast, amberina, bracelet, bandana and snood have been used. Examining 14 images of the golden styles of Iranian painting proves that the effect taken by the painter from the text has been more evident in the color of clothing.

One of the most important factors to affect artworks throughout history is religion. The territorial integrity of Islamic lands is one of the factors that influenced Islamic pottery. Islam has had a considerable impact on all aspects of Muslims’ lives, including art and specifically pottery. During the 3rd and 4th centuries AH (9th and 10th centuries AD), coinciding with the Abbasid dynasty, similar practices were observed in Islamic pottery. With the discovery of pottery in regions like Nishapur and Samarra, different theories have been raised. This article aims to study the characteristics and techniques of the pottery of each of these areas by studying them in the mentioned time period. The research explains as well the variable techniques, differences and similarities between the pottery produced in Nishapur and Samarra during the 3rd and 4th centuries in addition to the impacts other cultures have had on them in terms of techniques.
This study adopts an analytical-descriptive approach by using library resources to achieve the intended objectives. The research seeks answering some questions relating to features such as the qualification of Nishapur and Iraq pottery variation in techniques of manufacture and glazing, as well as the similarities and differences among such products, and the investigation of the influence of external techniques and styles on Persian tradition of pottery. The results of the study confirm the fact that the variation of shapes in Nishapur pottery mostly consists of bowls, punch bowls and plates with flat and occasionally flattened elongated bodies and ring bases. The pottery herein is decorated with mud coating techniques, white enamel painting, as well as those of underglaze white and ultramarine, splashed, engraved and luster. Samara pottery at the same time is often produced in the form of plates, bowls, vertical walled cups, and no-pot pitchers with vertical handles, using mud coating techniques, white-brown and ultramarine paint, matt white glaze imitating porcelain, and the glaze sprinkled with luster. Differences in body composition of the Samarra and Nishapur pottery are evident, and the base ring is one of the features that could not be copied, displaying its own characteristic in each region.  Examples of similar pottery in Nishapur and Samarra show the influence of Sassanian art, Chinese art, and pottery in Iraq, being the unique features of the Abbasid pottery. Politics, commerce, family relations, and the gathering of craftsmen and artists in Baghdad as well as the possibility of trading on the sea have also had a considerable effect in creating such works.

Qajar pictorial arts contain different themes such as political and courtly, heroic and epic, religious, romantic, erotic and sensual, and decorative (vegetal and geometric). Among all these we should consider another subcategory, i.e. military theme. The numerous works in this field have been manifested in various media, including oil paintings, watercolors, wall paintings, tilework, lithography and lacquerwork. Such works of art have undergone gradual changes in terms of visual elements as a result of political, regional and military evolution during the Qajar era the outcome of which has been manifested in the work of painters and portraitists. Iran’s troops and army were renewed during the reign of Fath Ali Shah, the second Qajar ruler, and by the attempts of his son, Abbas Mirza, the heir to the throne. This renovating trend in which the influence of the West is obvious continued well through the reign of following successors, especially that of Muhammad Shah onwards by gaining significant influence from the military achievements of European nations. The overt manifestation of such a trend is first and foremost visible in the appearance of the army, i.e. its uniform, arms and weaponry, and the physical training of the troops and groups of soldiers. Accordingly, the present article seeks finding answers to the following questions on a basis of a historical and analytical approach: What is the role of military portraits and scenes in Qajar art? What changes and development have occurred in the portraits of Qajar rulers, courtiers and soldiers in terms of military clothing and what factors have been influential in this respect? The results of the research indicate that military subjects in the painting of this period could be categorized as a separate and independent thematic genre regarding the abundance of extant related works of this field and the visual identity they take on. Furthermore, with the advent of technology and the arrival of experts form Europe; Iranian army adopted a standard uniform. Such evolution later on proceeded and manifested in the appearance of the ruler and the heir apparent as the elite of the military system of Iran, and then did so in that of courtiers and the nobility, and ultimately expanded outside the court arena.

The article discusses a scarcely known medium of architectural decoration in Abbasid palaces, transparent glass tiles, and reports on the discovery of the largest known assemblage of fragments of such tiles in Tehran, in a bottle of the Glassware and Ceramics Museum of Iran. 
The first part deals with the visual and material aspects of the use of transparent glass tiles, based on archaeological evidence, and it relates them to an iconography of a glass room in palaces, based on texts. A floor pavement, possibly also wall revetments, made of such tiles were excavated in residences at Raqqa in Upper Mesopotamia, Syria, dated to 180–193/796–809. The finds from the 1950s are scarcely known and have not been properly discussed. About two dozen fragments, mostly small, were recorded. They are compared with a few fragments that were excavated in other places of Syria and Iraq or turned up in the art market. So far nothing comparable is known from Abbasid sites in Iran and Khurasan.  
Using evidence from Palace B at Raqqa, the article demonstrates that glass tiles covered the floor of one specific room. The tiles are of transparent aqua-colored glass with green, blue, and turquoise hues. The underside is studded with half-globular nubs and was placed in a white plaster bedding. On the upper side it produced a visual pattern of drops and lines with varying color tonalities, making the greenish-bluish glass floor reminiscent of a water surface. This room was situated in the official wing of the building and functioned as a reception space. It can be related to the idea of the reception room with a floor that looks like water in the legendary palace of King Solomon/Sulaymān, mentioned in various religious and historical texts of Islamic writing of the 1st/7th–5th/11th centuries and based on the passage of his meeting with the Queen of Sheba in the Quran (sura 27, verse 44). A ‘Glass Room’ with a watery floor like in Palace B would connect the princely patron of the building with King Solomon, the wise and powerful ruler and famous builder. 
The second part of the article proposes to identify a glass bottle in the Glassware and Ceramics Museum of Iran in Tehran, which has been attributed to Parthian–Sasanian Northwest Iran, as a modern pastiche made from a multitude of small fragments of transparent Abbasid glass tiles. Close visual inspection of the square prismatic bottle shows that the semi-globular nubs of the exterior decoration constitute individual glass pieces of various sizes, that were glued together and form the body and the handle. These glass pieces are comparable to the fragments of Abbasid glass tiles that have been found in excavations. The article demonstrates that the bottle is a fake or forgery that was made from such fragments but copied Roman bottles. It was made for the art market in the years before the museum acquired it and later was presented as an object of Persian art. 
The article argues that nevertheless the bottle must be considered a highly important object and raises the question of its future museum presentation. Firstly, the number of glass tile fragments in it is much larger than what has been documented in excavations. They expand our knowledge on them, as visual differences point to at least nine tile sorts. Secondly, the bottle highlights the important modern phenomenon of faking Persian and Islamic art. Architectural decoration, from the early Islamic Abbasid period and with reference to Solomon’s palace, was made into a vessel that followed Roman models but became perceived as pre-Islamic Persian artifact.