فصلنامه گلستان هنر
سال چهارم شماره 4 (پیاپی 14، زمستان 1387)

Forms of imagination, which had an active role in the very human life in premodern era, now have remained in only the mentality of few peoples. These forms were appeared in each art in its own manner; however, all of these different appearances in a culture had a kind of similarity and relation due to their common basis in the culture. The forms that for a long time were the embodiments of Iranian art, architecture, and urbanism now have no place in the age of the realm of quantity. Hence architecture, city, and the urban life fell to chaos and irregularity. Isfahan school, in architecture, urban development, and painting, is among richest Iranian schools as to images (imaginative forms). Studying the principles and bases of images in architecture, city, and painting in Isfahan school can assure us the truth and trustworthy of the found bases, and help us to discover the real relations between various arts of the same culture. In this article, we will review the principles of imaginary expression in Isfahan school of architecture and urban development, and also analyze the images of city and building in two miniatures: Khosrow on the Shirin’s door and haft-wād.

Sufi monasteries and tombs of mystics have always been respectable in Iranian culture. These places have been used for teaching and learning cycles, and also as shelters for helpless people. Among them is the tomb of Pir-Hamzeh Sabzpoosh in Abarkuh. Unlike the plain outer surfaces of the building, the inner surfaces are adorned with different kinds of stucco decoration, several coloured medallions, and a dado. However, the stuccoed mihrab, which is related to the sixth century AH, is one of the most important characteristics of the building. Pir-Hamzeh building has been renovated and restored at least three times since its original built in the sixth century AH. This tomb is popularly known as the burial of Aziz-ed-Din Nassafi, the eminent Sufi Golestān-e Honar 14, Winter 20094 master. He escaped from his birthplace Bukhara in the second half of the seventh century AH, due to Mongols attack, and after wandering in different cities, finally he settled in Abarkuh, where he died later. However, there is no evidence available about his burial in the building. The ornaments of the tomb can be put in two categories: stuccos and paintings of walls; the first is of the sixth century AH, and the second of the eighth. According to our studies, comparing different periods, different kinds of materials were used in the ornaments of each period.

Historic evidences show that Na’ein was an important region during Sassanid period. The ruins of a Sassanid complex are remained as an archaeological site near Saparoo village in Na’ein district. The article is a result of the author’s archaeological research on the site. The site consists of a square dome with a coat of plaster, a rocky castle and a platform on which some buildings were located. It is likely that this site used to be a religious and military complex in which a small society was living.

In the recent archaeological excavations in the old square (Meydān-e Atiq) of Isfahan, the author found some facts that can radically change the existing imaginations about the original form of the square. These are some of the findings (1) There was no trace from pre-Islamic era; (2) The level of the square in the first Islamic centuries was about 60.40 m lower than the floor level of the Friday Mosque. In different periods, successive tries were made to reduce this level difference; to the present difference of about 1.30m; (3) A Qajar workshop was found in a part of the site. At first, it was an oil-extracting workshop; then it had been changed to a sugar-loaf workshop; (4) In the level of -3.30, there are some structures from Pahlavi period.

In the late 17th century the Safavid Shah Abbas I established Isfahan as the capital of his empire. He designed a plan on a monumental scale in the garden fields south of the old Seljuk centre, which integrated Zayanderud River into the formation of the new palatial city. The orthogonal intersection of the Chahar Bagh Avenue and the river created a chahar bagh (literary four garden) pattern on the scale of a city, which produced a synthesis between Persian and Islamic concepts of paradise, Turkic nomadic traditions of ritual and social uses of gardens, and the principle of a royal capital city. The symbolism and figurativeness of Isfahan within the frame of a chahar bagh cannot be completely separated from traditional notions of garden and paradise, but goes beyond the allegoric interpretation of religious or mystical references to Islamic paradise, bearing distinct iconographic and deliberate political connotations of empire. This paper is based on the hermeneutic analysis of Safavid gardens and contrasts traditional interpretations of Persian and Islamic gardens along the paradigm of paradise with an expanded definition of the political implications of paradise.

Islamic city cannot be understood unless it is placed in a wider historical context. Reconstruction of the Islamic cities in the various phases of their historic development by making clay and computer models can be useful for this understanding. In the absence of archaeological data, urban and architectural historians have had to turn to textual descriptions, as the Arab chronicles. Examples of such reconstruction are of Damascus and Cairo, in Umayyads and Fatimids eras. The city of Damascus which was the capital of a small Aramaic kingdom, after conquering by Alexander and then under Roman rule became a Greco-Roman city. Then it became part of the Byzantine Empire. By the time that Damascus fell to the Arabs, the structure and general image of the city remained the same at least until the Umayyads made it their capital in spite of its major cultural Golestān-e Honar 14, Winter 2009 5 transformation. Fatimid caliph in Egypt, al-Mu’izz, need to build a capital as the seat of Fatimid caliphate and a rival to Baghdad, being the intellectual and religious centre of the Islamic world. The Fatimid caliph's envoy, Jawhar, built the new capital, Cairo, in the north of Fustat and parallel to the Nile. It had a rectangular pattern and had city wall, gates, the caliph’s palace, mosque, squares, and gardens. On his arrival in the city, the caliph led the first public prayer, setting Cairo. The image of the original city of al-Mu'izz seems to have been one that conforms to a regular grid with wide streets and large open squares, very different to the stereotyped image of the Muslim city. After him, his son al-Aziz who was also a great builder, added several important building to. Badr al-Jamali, his vizier, renewed the appearance of Cairo. For the first time, Cairo was given the appearance of a fortified city, a feat primarily achieved by using recycled stone from nearby ancient Egyptian temples.

The architecture of Iranian world had flourished before Timurids, in Mozaffearids period, and Timurid architecture is rooted in Mozafferid architecture. Combining the architecture of south of Iran and Transoxiana in the part of Khorasan which is now in Iran, a kind of Timurid architecture style was formed. However, the most significant Timurid buildings are located out of northern and eastern borders of Modern Iran, especially in Samarkand and Herat. The buildings of Samarkand are unique due to two aspects: the first, it is a manifestation of a new and special style, and the second, their style was created during the last thirty years of the eighth/ fourteenth century, which is the stagnation period of enormous architecture projects in Iran. Timurid architecture is usually considered as the achievement of architects who were sent from Iran to Transoxiana; however, most of the tombs of Shah- Zende complex were built before Timur's attack to Iran. It seems that some of the design and ornaments techniques which became common in Iran later, had been formed in Transoxiana, such as enormous sizes. Yet, Timurid monuments in Herat are more similar to those of Khorasan in Iran, and they can be considered as a connection between Transoxiana and Iran. Among different schools which were formed in Iran in the ninth/ fifteenth century, the main style of Timurid architecture flourished in a triangular district between Mashhad, Samarkand and Herat. Some of the most significant characteristics of Timurid architecture which were first formed in Iran and then resulted in central Asia are emphasizing on maximum amount of largeness, considering diversity in both inner and outer parts of buildings, logical and suitable design, creating new kinds of dome and vault, and richness of coloured ornaments.

A ceramic body coated by celadon glaze is a ceramic artwork which along with other astonished and attractive ceramic artworks such as Zarrin-Fām, Mina`i and blue and white porcelain have got an elevated place in the ceramic art. For the first time, about two thousand years ago, Chinese ceramists tried to produce vessels resemble to the Jasper which was valuable and respected by them, led to the Celadon bodies. These fascinating articles were also valuable in other countries such as Iran, Korea and Turkey and were respected similar to its motherland; China so many of the similar ceramic bodies were also made in different time and countries. Although the Iranian pottery had already faced a recession due to the Mongol attack, the emerging of Celadon in Kerman restored the ceramic art and industry. This glory continued in the Timurid and Safavid eras and many pottery centres were developed by producing the celadon bodies. Although Iranian potters imitate the Chinese celadon but they gradually used their taste and elegance and succeeded to produce their own celadon bodies.

At the same time that Qajars were reigning Iran, many changes appeared in most of European and Asian cultures so that Qajar art was also affected by them. Therefore, continuation of the tradition Golestān-e Honar 14, Winter 2009 6 of visual arts in Iran may have been interrupted in Qajars period. However, on the one hand they used to be penchant for Persian traditional forms and issues in the period, especially for Sassanid and Achaemenian relieves, and on the other hand, there are elements in portraits of Qajar kings which can be rather found in descriptions of ancient texts than remained images of the past. One of the first effects of Qajar paintings was largeness of sizes which showed a very fracture with past, and was considered as a new event in Persian figurative arts. There are many differences between the art in early and late period of Qajars, of which the most significant reason is the development of photography. Despite finding repetitive and inexpressive faces and bodies in Qajar paintings, a kind of attraction is found, which is a consequence of their instinctive simplicity. These works cannot be considered as ways of showing the power of Qajar kings; rather they show an original modernity and popularity. The most attractive aspect of Qajar art is looking for this modernity, and the result of such demand is what is now remained of Qajar art.

This article was written by a prominent Iranologist in 1931. Although some of the author's ideas have been either breached or modified through recent findings, this article steel contains a lot of remarkable points. The author begins his expressions with geography, as artist's natural environment, and its effect on Persian art, and mentions some examples of miniature and gardening and weaving carpets to imply it. In his opinion, studying Persian art is so useful due to two major characteristics of the history of Iran: multiplicity of its capitals and constant alteration of the high-ranking authorities of the government. The research which lead to this article was mostly based on architectural works, since they are the best manifestations of urban life, and cooperation of different artists is requisite in constructing any significant building. The author then states the proportion of architectural works (and sometimes other arts) and city to their geographical location in each period of Iranian history, and studies the density of the works of each dynasty in Iran, from Achaemenians to Qajars. The second part of the article is devoted to the eastern and western part of Iran (especially Khorasan and Iraq) and the amount of their importance in the history of Iranian culture. In this part, the author remarks a written debate among the most prominent Iranologists of his time about the matter.