نشریه نگارینه هنر اسلامی
پیاپی 5 (بهار 1394)

Leather coverings of holy Quran are valuable artistic work and religious heritages. It is clear that Timurid era was one of the most important period of Iranian arts that writing styles had flourished and reached to its magnificence. Timurian was coincident with Mamluk dynasty in Egypt; that its leather coverings of Qurans were precious and valuable. The aims of this research are studying the decorations and motifs of leather coverings of holy Qurans at the above mentioned periods. This research was based on historical, descriptive and comparative methods. The available Quran’s coverings from two dynasties were described and compared to each other. Information was gathered from library resources, internet based information and pictures. The results showed that in Timurian time, decorative elements such as botanical designs, medallions, and animal pictures were used on covering. Some of these elements are common with Mamluk covering decorations as well. Also applications of golden ribbons for embossing designs were common. To prevent books from damages during usage, Timurian craftsmen invented “sartabl” that is a triangle shape part attached to the front part of cover to prevent the edges of the papers. Decorative designs of coverings are included natural senses, animals, flowers and trees. In general Mamluk coverings were simple but the craftsmen used a new method of covering decoration, called “Malileh dozi” that was adopted by Iranian artists as well. Usually the artists used geometrical designs, variety of stars, trees, animals and flowers and medallions.

Shahnameh of Ferdowsi as a valuable and inspiring resource, since appearance was welcomed by artists and artisans of the Islamic era. Since Ferdowsi described the epic stories in his book so meticulous and attentive and full of beauty, Persian painters decorated Shahnama’s books with illustration of battle scenes between two power of good and evil. The story of the battle of Rustam and white demon (Div-e Sepid) is one of the most famous story in the seventh labor (Khan-e Haftum).This scene also was painted repeatedly in the Shahnameh manuscripts in different painting schools. This research is about this scene in the illustrations in Shiraz, Herat, Tabriz, and Isfahan schools in Iran which all of them are very important painting schools of Iran. This study is written via descriptive and analytical methods. Vast surveys showed some specific and indicative differences in backgrounds of images, how they shows portraits of heroes and characters or scenes, also composition of colors, clothes and rules of perspective in the painting of the scene in various schools. Determination and differentiation or participation of qualities in paintings of the scene of Shahnama beside of other scenes will be able to contrive for more knowledge of properties of these four schools and their differences from each other from the eighth century A.H to 11 A.H.

Persian arts have an extensive range, but what in this article have been concentrated are decorative-applied arts including Persian gardening and Persian carpeting. Geometry has had many applications in Persian art and architecture for a long time. The application is very profound that even today it can be seen in arts in various forms and has its freshness yet. Architects have also used geometry in different ways in the process of Persian garden designing. This research is based on analyzing a number of Persian gardens and carpets from the viewpoint of geometry in order to achieve common patterns between them. The main question is to understand what are the impacts of Persian garden design on graphic of carpets? What is common geometry between Persian garden and carpet? In research process descriptive-analytic techniques are used and required data are collected by archival methods and surveying the cases in order to review two Iranian traditional arts i.e. carpet and garden, and achieve the impact of them on each other. Research process and conclusion is based on analysis of samples. Research achievements indicate that Persian carpet is a manifestation of Persian garden. In other words, Persian carpet has used Persian garden’s arrangement of organs, combination of color of trees and its other characteristics. Carpet weavers have fully understood the plan of the Persian garden and have used it in their textiles. So Persian carpets with garden graphic can be considered a top view and inspired from it that has been occurred in the area of textiles.

In the history of carpet weaving in Iran, Safavid period can be called as the golden age of carpet weaving art. One of the reasons for the popularity of these carpets is their design features. The design of these carpets indicates the creativity and ingenuity as well as the skillfulness of the artists of this era. Various patterns such as floral, animal, and human are used in the carpets of this period, each of them indicates a wide variety of meanings. Dragon is one of the elements in Safavid carpets which frequently has been used in various forms in the carpets of this period. This article intended to investigate the symbolic meanings and forms of dragon in Safavid carpets using analytical-descriptive method. Moreover according to existing library resources, the available Safavid carpets’ images including the dragon image were investigated. Then, dragon images in those carpets were separated and their position and forms were evaluated. The study is revealed that dragon is the most frequent legendary image in Safavid carpets and in most cases; this image is at odds with phoenix and not in conflict with him. The variety of dragon designs allows the possibility of using it in all parts of the carpets but this mythical beast were frequently used in the margins and text of carpets rather than central medallion.

Mi’raj event is a great prophet that has always attracted artists and therefore has artistic effects in many different fields such as, Miniature and pottery emerged. According to Quran Karim, in one night in Makkah, Gabriel is sent down to the Prophet and the Prophet calls Jerusalem. Prophet riding on a horse is called Boragh and so begins his spiritual journey. The story of Mi’raj the Prophet is a common theme in the art of miniature. In the seventh century AH era Īlḵanid religious challenges led to the Qur’anic narrative illustration, especially issues associated with the era of the Prophet’s life, to be considered. One of the decorative motifs is the Asfnks motif, along with the tree of life. This motif as an archetype, the culture of ancient Persia and Mesopotamia suitable for a narrative description of Mi’raj, the visibility was miniaturists. Purpose of this paper was to study and knowledge the role of symbolic Boragh and Sdrh Almnthy tree on Islamic pottery and comparison with samples from the miniature. In continue of this study was chosen because of the mythological horse Asfnks as the Prophet, are discussed. The methods were used in this study is the historical and descriptive –matching and Collection practices and gathering information was according to the library and field methods. The results were indicated that, Mi’raj is an extraterrestrial event, therefore, artists, designs Asfnks, mythological creature who is well connected with astronomy, as a horse the Prophet in his spiritual journey of, have been intended.

Mandala is an Archetype which has represented its concept in the primary form of circle, rectangle or a combination of both in most civilizations; however, different details has emerged into this pattern based on the cultural background of each region, thus creating various forms. In terms of concept, Mandala explaining location of the gods, temples and it used for meditation in the Hindu and Buddhist tradition and image of the Paradise or the world plan in the Iranian tradition. In this paper, it has been tried to re-identify form and concepts of Mandala and compare them with Chahar-Bagh carpets. The purpose of the paper is to provide evidence regarding the representation of Mandala in Chahar-Bagh carpets. Information has been gathered based on documents and has been analyzed through comparative reasoning, taking into concepts, categories and the relationship amongst them. Results show that concepts such as “Naghsh-e-Jahan/world pattern,” “Bagh-e-Behesht/eden,” “Ab-e-Hayat/eternity spring,” “Fences preventing entrance of Demons,” are found in Chahar-Bagh carpets and comparable with Mandala in other cultures. From the form point of view, dividing Chahar-Baghi carpets by cross like creek with an eternity spring or a central palace in the middle- the spring later changes into Toranj- also matches Mandala form.

An antiquity of fish motif in various forms in Persian art, make it as symbol .Iranian earthenware have been had this motif .because of symbolic meaning of this motif, it is important to interpret. In this paper we selected the 6ah and 7 ah century because of two reason: the first is that mogul invasion and currency of sequestered life between people. The second reason is that inseparable link between art and literature. We attempt to interpretation this motif in Iranian earthenware in light of symbolic meaning of fish in Mathnavi of Molana. Mathnavi have been used the symbolic meaning of fish motif as perfect man. Perfect man absorbed in thinking of Allah and do not have any hope other than to received to Allah. The fish motif in Islamic earthenware of Iran have been presented in two ways : the first is that The fish circulate around central dot and the other is that the fish move in four division. Finding of this paper show that , the fish motif in Islamic earthenware of Iran in light of symbolic meaning in Mathnavi of Molana, can interpret to perfect man and paradisiacal human. In this paper, we used descriptive-analytic method based on library document.