نشریه نامه هنرهای تجسمی و کاربردی
پیاپی 14 (پاییز و زمستان 1393)

Personification of the “planet moon” is one of the most popular astrological themes in Islamic metalwork of 12th and 13th centuries, which has been used frequently on a group of inlaid brasses and bronzes, most notably, of the so-called Jaziran School of metalwork. This is a cross legged seated figure, whether male or female, holding a large symbolic crescent before his/her head, which is sometimes depicted in isolation and sometimes in combination with the other six planets, namely the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Sudden appearance of this theme and its vast prevalence on the large body of metalware of this period has partly raised questions regarding its iconographical origin. It was German learned scholar, Fritz Saxl, who, for the first time in the beginning of 20th century, had tried to connect the iconography of Islamic astrological themes toHarranians of north Mesopotamia and through them to ancient Babylonians. To date this connection has been taken for granted by other scholars of the field, who seem to be unaware of the fact that Saxl himself assumes no certainty on the Babylonian origin of the iconography of Islamic astrological themes, especially when it comes to the planet moon’s personification. Therefore, this paper, in order to give a plausible explanation with regard to the origin of the planet moon’s theme, aims to reinvestigate and reexamine its iconography. To achieve this goal, we have used descriptive-analytical research method and having gathered and analyzed adequate evidences, come to conclude that the iconography of planet moon, as is seen in the Islamic metalwork of this period, is more likely derived from pictorial tradition of pre-Islamic Iran, in particular Parthian and Sassanid artistic repertoire. The importance of planet moon in itself in ancient Iran needs not to be overstated. Its signs and symbols have decorated, for example, the surface of pre-historic potteries for thousands of years. However, it is in Parthian period that one can, for the first time, find the exact parallel of Islamic model for personification of planet moon. From this period, among reliefs of Hatra palace, there have been survived depictions of moon goddesses, one of them representing the upper body of a female figure carried by a crescent. Later on in Sassanid period, a more explicit expression of this theme has been developed, especially on the silver plates and seals of the period. This depicts an unusually large crescent within which a god or goddess stands or seats. These pre-Islamic prototypes altogether have provided Muslim artists of later centuries with a strong pictorial model of the planet moon, whether within or without other six planets’ representations. In this transmission process, in addition to visual elements, some nonvisual characteristics also found their ways into Islamic iconography. Therefore, it seems that the simultaneous employment of feminine and masculine figures in the representation of planet moon in

The illustration of potteries with narrative themes in Iran became common from the late Seljuk era onenamel and luster glaze works. These works contain different themes from court scenes and everyday life to those inspired from historical and literary narratives. The lack of direct representation of the narrative and the ambiguities of the illustrated subjects are among those factors which have made the understanding of their exact connotations difficult. One of the examples in this regard is the luster-glazed bowl in Freer Gallery of Art, Washington. This paper, besides criticizing Guest and Ettinghausen’s views, aims at examining and interpreting the hidden meaning of the image in a bowl from this period (one of the most prominent works in luster glaze) now preserved at Freer Galley on the basis of iconographical approach and library research. Here, we have first described the elements of the image and identified the motifs and the present connections among them. Then, the subject of the image has been studied and the theory of its narrative is tested by referring to literary resources and historical investigation of Khosrow and Shirin story and some other legendry tales of that period through studying and comparing common themes of the time. We inferred that the image goes back tothe tradition of illustration of that period taken from an oral historical narrative with romantic themes and Shams al-Din al-Hassani, its narrator, has made a quick reference to one of its parts by emphasizing on oral narratives. We also reviewed the mystical theory of the image and after studying related texts, the examinations identified that mysticism has been much influential in choosing the subject of thenarrative as well as the content of poems written on the bowl. Having rejected the theories of the mentioned thinkers about the mere mystical aspects of illustrated sections, it is concluded that the representation of abstract mystical concepts was not the only point to be mentioned. Itis said that Shams al-Din the poet has been familiar with mysticism. This recognition has firmly rooted into the picture by the influences on the subject and content of the inscriptions’ poems. We could finally make the conclusion that this romantic narrative conforms to mystical concepts due to the same theme, i.e.“love and beauty”. Furthermore it is possible to regard this bowl, as one the numerous decorative objects in the late Seljuk period displaying a romantic narrative. The mystical themes of love in it have been manifested by the poems on the rim while intensifying the hidden sense of mysticism of the picture.

In Persian miniature, due to its close relationship with literature, more than one theme or historical event can be seen. In the meantime, the story of Mansur al-Hallaj, who was a famous Persian mystic in the mystical literature, is among the events that are reflected in Persian miniature frequently. According to the historical reports, Mansur al-Hallaj was accused of blasphemy and killed tragically. The miniature reviewed by this paper deals with this historic event, however, this work shows that the painter has departed away from the historical narratives, and depicted this event from a different angle which has deeper meanings which cannot be recognized immediately. Therefore, The purpose of this paper is to achieve those hidden deeper meanings in a miniature appeared in Majales o al- Oshshagh belonging to the Safavid era in Shiraz with subject of hanging Mansur al-Hallaj, using an iconological approach with an emphasis on method adopted by Panofsky. Iconology has been described as the description, classification, or analysis of meaning or symbolism in the visual arts that takes into account the tradition of pictorial motifs and their historical, cultural, and social meaning. In the meantime Panofsky’s research method consists of three steps: the first level is a description of the factual and is termed as “pre-iconographic description”. This level does not require any in-depth knowledge of either the work or its context, apart from the ability to recognize what is represented. The second level, i.e. iconographical analysis, involves an understanding of the subject matter and requires an analysis of the pre-iconographic material, which can be derived only from familiarity with and knowledge of the themes and concepts represented. The third or iconographical level is the most complicated of the three and involves an understanding of the intrinsic meaning or content, constituting the world of “symbolical values.” According to Panofsky, in order to achieve the deep meaning of artworks, the relationship between cultural and social elements and details of artwork should be reviewed. Accordingly, the research question is to identify the relationship between the visual elements of the selected image in this paper and some factors affecting for example the life and thought of Mansur Hallaj, Shiraz as the social and cultural context of creation of this work, as well as the mindset and beliefs of the Safavid dynasty. The method in this paper is descriptive–analytical one and data is collected from library resources and internet. The results show that since Shiraz is an important center of Zoroastrianism before and after Islam, Zoroastrianism acts as a linking element and Zoroastrian and Islamic thoughts can be found in the image. Fire located in the center of the image that is the main element of the Zoroastrian religion as well as Islamic Sufi thoughts supports the claim. It also seems that the relationship between visual elements and ideas of the Hallaj has been exhibited proficiently due to the painter’s mastery of Sufis thoughts. Moreover, the intellectual and doctrinal aspects of the rule of the Safavid dynasty were recognized in the miniature.

Joseph Kosuth, American conceptual artist, has special techniques in art creation. He is an theorist, writer and artist and professor in art universities. He is one of the important figures in contemporary art, especially conceptual one. He wrote some seminal essays regarding contemporary art, like “Art as Idea as Idea” and “Art after philosophy”. Through this texts he found the new bases for a new art. Kosuth’s works show the major distant from traditional art frameworks. The rejection of aesthetics concepts and painterly elements are two goals of conceptual arts. Ideas, meaning and signification in this stream are so important. Ideas of artist can be socio-political and philosophical or religious and cultural; meaning is comprehension of audience; and signification is related to work. In the first stages of his career, Kosuth follows the theory of Ludwig Wittgenstein who is a main character in analytical philosophy. We will claim that not only this kind of Kosuth’s works but also his whole works can be read using Derrida’s approach. This comparative analysis shows the impact of linguistic anddeconstructive thought on Kosuth’s works and considers precisely his theory, his art and his shift in art interests and definition. In his career, this artist has created different and interesting types of works. At first stage, he put three mediums, i.e. an object, a picture of object and its dictionary definition,together. In another stage, he deforms classical artistic pictorial and writing works, for example crosses out Freud’s theories and writings. In the third, he shows just writing sentences of himself or a philosopher or from dictionaries in different styles, especially with neon. In this paper, with regarding to Wittgenstein’s impact, Derrida’s deconstructive concepts have been read, thus someconcepts like, decenterism, intertextuality and appropriation, the importance of writing and grammatology, double reading, undererasure, subjectile and labyrinth have been read. Dematerialization in all the Kosuth’s works means decentering the main elements of formalist painting. Also, this artist employs form ofwriting and language for his creativity. In this kind of works, he calls art as analytic proposition which is a picture of the world. The possibility of proposition rests upon the fact that logic of world structure is similar to the language structure. We find through Derrida’s argument that there is a rupture between signified and signifier. This can be explained through Derrida’s interest in writing as asuperior form in speech/writing opposition. The artist also has used philosophers’ words and quotations. He shortly follows other philosopher’s ideas. He follows the undererasure strategy which stem from Heidegger’s philosophy and Derrida’s usage of it. Derrida thought this strategy as a metaphor,because both affirms and rejects an issue. Kosuth also uses and rejects Freud’s theory. As a result, there is no fixed and singular meaning for audience; there are no fixed significations for signs. There is no way for artist toshow and express all aspects of his/her ideas in artwork. In this paper, despite Kosuth’s intentions, we have found other meanings in his works probably in contrary to his ideas.

Educational systems around the world should be aligned with and updated to active cycle of art outside the universities on the one hand, and should create vibrant academic settings to motivate students on the other hand. How should be the art education in Iran? To answer this question, this research compares art and sculpture education in Iran and five other universities. This research is qualitative and its conclusions are based on interpretation. In the first part, general problems and difficulties of education and arts education in Iran have been examined, and in the second part the experience of five universities who had been encountered with difficulties in dealing with public education of art has been investigated. In the third part, a proposed project is suggested for education of arts by looking at arts and sculpture education in Iran. The main tree challenges in art education include: fostering independence in artist’s personality, relationship with native culture, and being connected to the time. In this curriculum, to foster independence in artist’s character, it is better to pay more attention to interactive teaching methods, development of personal expression and critical thinking regarding the choice of courses. To interact with the historical identity, it is better to be more concerned with the ways of teaching history of Iran, eastern art history, the possibility of practical experience in the art of Iran, as well as understanding the geographical context and social issues of these days. Paying attention to the nature of art in the past fifty years is necessary for updating the lessons, which means moving art from formal trends to conceptual ones. For the courses may meet the needs of today’s art, it is necessary to consider the nature of art after 1960s, i.e. putting away the formal trends in favor of concept. Artists from this period onwards, with every work of art with proposed some questions about the meaning of art, to the extent that visual arts became much similar to theories about art. Therefore it is necessary to include some courses so that students may become familiar with the challenges of the meaning of art and art work, such as art criticism and ideas in art. Moreover, the boundaries of four groups of art were vanished in this period and visual arts were combined with applied arts, performing arts and literature. Media presence on the art scene expanded the boundaries in favor of possibilities of art. In addition to combination of the arts, other issues from humanities and natural science fields wereincluded in art. As a result, the focus on the field of visual arts present in the modern era may change. For this purpose, interdisciplinary relationships can be taken into consideration for proposing optional courses. Furthermore, the experiences of other countries show that courses are adjusted periodicallyat intervals with some change from a year to the next one. Therefore it is necessary to devise a mechanism for changing and revising of the courses.

As the electronic and internet communication grows, the need for designing websites for universities also has become more apparent, and attracting users to these websites and passing information through them has become to be one of these organizations’ primary goals. This research aims to find criteria for designing websites of successful universities in the world. In web design – as in graphic design in general – many visual elements are involved, such as color, contrast, size, texture, etc. Establishing standards for designing the aforementioned elements, aside from improving the visual presence, can be useful for communicating with users and persuading them to visit the website more often. One way to achieve this goal is studying and analyzing some of the successful university websites in the world, as they have already accomplished establishing such models for successful communication and interaction with their users. This study is an applied research and uses qualitative and semiquantitative methods for data gathering and analyzing. Target population of this study is all of the university websites on the World Wide Web. Totally, 53 websites from different universities in the world have been selected based on their scientific and website rankings from THE and Webmetrics databases. A few art universities and faculties were added to the list later on in the process, as in THE and Webmetrics, art universities or faculties are not listed separately, and it was expected that these universities or faculties to have more focus on design. Their selection then was based on their ranking among art universities. Then, using a custom checklist, the visual characteristics of their main pages have been analyzed. Four main variables in this checklist include: type, color, multimedia and composition, and they have been analyzed with some questions in details. For the purpose of this study, these websites’ technical characteristics have not been taken into account as well as their contents. These websites were checked in Google Chrome browser running on a Windows 7 Operating System. The results show that successful websites share common visual characteristics. Some of these characteristics include: using sans serif fonts; not using stroke andunderline for titles; one or two different typefaces for text; achieving visual diversity by using different font sizes, weights or decorations like bold, light or italic; white or bright colors for page background; avoiding photo or texture for page background; color contrast between text and their backgroundcolor; similarity of typefaces amongst links and other texts; distinguishing links with color, underlining and their position; ordering links in normal pop-up menus; 2-dimensional rectangular design for buttons; using default shape for mouse and scroll bars; using slideshow and not using music or soundeffects for pages; placing logo on top-left; dividing the main content to three or four column; using one to three photos in homepage; using headers, text and news links as positive and main links as negative;following the same design pattern of the homepage in other pages regarding color, composition and showing in different tabs.

Learning in museums can be studied in two specific and generic fields; the generic learning covers overall aspects of visitors and their relationship and interaction with the museum and its collections, artistic and historical materials. The specific learning shows increase in the extent of knowledge about a special material or issue which has been presented in the museum or historical site. In order to enhance the level of visitors’ learning in the museum, it is important to measure the amount of learning in the status quo; there are some different indicators of occurrence of learning in formal and informal educational settings proposed by educational psychologists. Learning and museum theorists have also defined some indicators as the signs of occurring learning in informal settings especially in museums and have named them “Learning Impacts or Outcomes”; GLOs or Generic Learning Outcomes is the name of a project which has been done by Hooper-Greenhill et al. at the University of Leicester in order to introduce a model for measuring learning outcomes in museums, archives and libraries. It has extracted five domains of (1) increase in knowledge and understanding; (2) increase in skills;(3) change in attitudes or values; (4) enjoyment, inspiration, creativity; (5) action, behavior, progression, from an extensive research project. An exact study on GLOs features along with a review of other similar papers and research projects about the outcomes of learning or interpretation in an informal educational or learning settings as well as historical and cultural sites and the quality and quantity of evaluating and measuring them shows that they can be categorized into three affective, behavioral and cognitive domains. Although many studies have been done related to this issue, and they often focus on defining these indicators and there is almost no clear and determined method in order to use them for measuring learning and recognizing its outcomes and indicators in a real museum context. Also, it is impossible to evaluate the learning in a museum without considering different effective factors on this process because learning is an ambiguous concept to define and a multidimensional phenomenon on which many different known and unknown factors can have an impact. Although controlling all effective variables is not possible in a research design, recognizing some of important variables in the museum space and including them in the research design might be a useful method by reviewing the previous studies. In this regard, this research aims to propose a practical plan and design as well as a useful instrument for measuring generic learning outcomes in museums. To do so, it reviews the research background about learning indicators and learning domains as well as effective factors onthe learning in museum. The paper uses a qualitative and descriptive research method. According to the proposed research design, the influence of three groups of factors, i.e., factors ofthe museum, individual and social factors of visitors can be measured on the generic learning and its three domains.