Persian Art

The History of Art in Persia dates from the remote ages of the ” Four ancient monarchies,” of which Persia is the only one now existing. The long duration of Persia as a separate and generally independent kingdom has been less owing to its power of resisting attacks from without than to the faculty always shown of absorbing its temporary conquerors.

Thus the conquests of Alexander in ancient times, and those of Moguls, Arabs, and Afghans more recently, have each left Persia comparatively unchanged. A large proportion of the inhabitants at the present day, especially in the north and north-west, are of Turkish (Turkistan) origin, and still preserve the language and to some extent the features of their ancestors, while at the same time they are nationally as thoroughly Persian as the rest of the community.

One great cause of this in more modern times is doubtless what may be called the sectarian nature of the national creed ; the Shiah, as opposed to the Sunni, form of Mahommedanism. This sectarianism has no doubt had a great effect in keeping alive the feeling of nationality with which the country has always been impressed, and in preventing union with the native mussulman states.

A continuous national existence has probably favorably influenced the development of art among the people. Before the time of Alexander they had reached a degree of perfection in architecture and sculpture which can still be appreciated in the magnificent ruins of Persepolis, the style of which at once recalls the well-known sculptures from Nineveh.

Probably nowhere else does a more splendid monument of former grandeur now exist. The tomb of Cyrus, the ruins of Pasargadae, the Takht-i-Sulaiman, the Naksh-i-Rustam, and other remains show moreover that during the same period, the artistic skill of the Persians was not confined to Persepolis alone.

The rock sculptures and ruins of Shapur (Sapor) a.d. 238 attest the existence of a similar although degenerated art in the time of the Roman empire. Of the centuries immediately after the Arab conquest few specimens of Persian art now remain, owing to the works being executed in more perishable material than rock and marble.

Among the oldest remains of this period are probably the ornamental tiles with which the domes and walls of the mosques were decorated. In these the influence of the new religion is naturally very manifest. These tiles appear to be an imitation of a peculiar kind of earthenware with a beautiful metallic lustre, which was made in Persia certainly 600, and possibly 2000, years ago.

From the earliest time until the present day Persian art has retained a distinct characteristic style little influenced by contact with other nations. The only exceptions are the results of the importation of Chinese porcelain in the 16th and 17th centuries, and of Cashmere shawls about the same period, both which importations have continued to be closely imitated in Persia.

A few articles in bronze (one is in the South Kensington museum) are probably the only other things now extant belonging to the same age as the earthenware above referred to almost
all the other old objects now to be found in the country date from the time of Shah Abbas the great (a.d. 1582) in whose reign Persian manufactures attained a high, perhaps their highest, degree of excellence.

That the taste for art has long been widely spread among the Persians is shown by the great pains taken to ornament articles of daily use and of little intrinsic value. This fact will be apparent on the most cursory examination of the varied collection in the museum nor has the taste by any means diminished, still less died out, in the country. Some of the textile fabrics of the present day compare not unfavorably with the most ancient specimens, as also some kinds of metal work.

The earthenware on the other hand, as an examination of the collection in the museum will show, has greatly degenerated. The decay of this and of some other manufactures dates from the universal disturbance and anarchy which accompanied the overthrow of the Safavian dynasty by the Afghans in the last century.
Persia is in all probability the country from which the Arabs derived the arts afterwards developed by them in Spain and else-where. The successors and followers of Mahomed were after all but rude Bedouins, who gradually acquired culture from contact with the more refined countries which they overran.

The powerful Abbasid Khalifs of Bagdad no doubt summoned to their court men of science and learning from all the countries under their sway ; Persia furnishing them with architects and other artists. Skilled Persian workmen were no doubt employed in large numbers in decorating the mosques and palaces in the Arab capital, situated as it was on the very frontier of their own country.

Thence we believe arose the so-called Arabian or Arabesque style of ornament, afterwards so widely spread and now – so well known. The peculiar pendant ornamentation of vaults and niches, of which the Alhambra is so typical an example, is identical in style with that used throughout Persia down to the present day and specimens have been found in the ruins of Rhages (as known as Ray), a city finally destroyed 600 years ago.

Persia, always an artistic country, could hardly have borrowed it from her rude conquerors. The Arabs no doubt modified the art derived from the Persians, the modifications being much influenced by their intense hatred of anything approaching idolatry.

The Persians however, even during their greatest religious fervour, never lost their taste for all kinds of ornament, including representations of actual natural objects. The Arabs themselves were probably never an artistic people, although many of their rulers were distinguished patrons and propagators of art and science.

It is far from improbable that even the Alhambra itself was chiefly the work of Persians, who stood to the Arabs in much the same relation that the Greeks did to the Romans. The presence of a considerable colony of Persians in Spain in the time of the Moors is attested by a document assigning the town Rioja to the Persians as their place of residence. This fact was recently brought to notice by a Spanish traveler in Persia, Señor Rivadeneyra.

Unlike the Arabs the Persians have always been, and still are, artistic. After every great political convulsion art naturally declined, but only to arise in some new form as soon as the country had enjoyed a period of settled internal government and external peace.

The Turanian or Turkish element in the population, although politically and religiously amalgamated with the Persian, has however never imbibed the artistic idiosyncrasies of the latter. Works of art are almost exclusively confined to the parts of the country inhabited by the old Aryan stock ; that is to say, to the center, south and east.

The chief seats of the manufacture of textile fabrics have always been Kurdistan, Yazd and Kerman; of earthenware, Kashan, Nain and the neighbourhood; of engraved copper work, Kashan ; of painting, armour and engraved steel, and brass, Isfahan ; of jewellery, wood, mosaic and enameling, Shiraz ; and of wood carving, Abadeh (is a city and capital of Abadeh County, in Fars Province).