Convergence and Divergence among Active Artists of Astan Quds Razavi and Lithography of the Institution (Case Study: Scribes)

As soon as lithography industry entered Iran, many lithography printing houses were established in Tehran, Tabriz, and other cities and the first lithography printing house was founded in Mashhad by Astan Quds Razavi. From the activity period of the AQR’s lithography house (1294-1344 AH), twenty eight books were identified that most of them bear the name of their scribes on the first and last pages. This study that used the descriptive-analytical method aimed to see that when the Astan Quds Razavi entered this new printing industry, how many active scribes of different parts of AQR interacted with this printing house as a burgeoning cultural sector and the reasons of the convergence and divergence among them. The results of exploring the archived documents -apart from the stylistic and aesthetic issues- show that from amongst the many scribes active in the administrative and cultural parts of Astan Quds Razavi, during the activity period of lithography printing house of the institution, a very limited number of them cooperated with this printing house. This convergence is seemingly in line with personal interests, economic benefits, and other possible issues and the divergence of many of the scribes can be interpreted by the help of the conflict between tradition and modernity. That is, the lithography printing produced a big bulk of books in a very short period of time at a very low cost. Consequently, the growth and expansion of this activity (modernism) resulted in a lower status of AQR’s scribes (tradition). Therefore, the divergence among AQR’s scribes can be considered an impeding factor beside the increasing number of productions of AQR’s lithography printing house on the one hand, and making a negative attitude towards the products of this center among the cultural trustees of AQR on the other hand.