Sociological Consideration of "Panah" Painting (1356) by Mahmood Farshchian

Sociological study in art, establishes new capabilities and advantages for social planners and art society members. Sociological study of Farshchian,s Shiite paintings, which usually were welcomed by the public, more than the meaning, will provide the contemporary Iranian painters with self-awareness. This research will also answer to questions such as “how does a piece of art bccome fameous and welcomed, how personal background causes a piece of art be welcomed publicly, what are the affects of cultural conditions on artist personality and his works and what is the relation between society and artist and his work?

To answer these questions via an explanatory - analytic method for analyzing, much data gathered through studying texts and interviewing some painters and professors. This method in relation to the theoretical model used, managed data collecting and then analyzing, finding and finally concluding the results.

Sociological study of “Panah”religious painting (meaning shelter) to uncover the mechanism of social creating based on a local theory, made by professor seyyed saeed zahed, showed that the painting has been the resultant of artist action in background of personality, culture and social condition together. This comment means that we can not put our stress on one social factor alone, but examine the portion of factors which should not be supposed fixed in their portion of influence. Our analysis on factors and their  portion of affection made it clear that personality of the artist and cultural background have directly affected the inspiration, imagination and innovation of farshcian in “Panah”, but the social structure indirectly and unconsciously.The artist birth in a religous family and the Shiite system of training by mother according ceremonies like pilgrimage, resorting and mourning has formed and deeply affected his aesthetics. In this way his action is in accordance to shiite public culture and the kind of its aesthetics as far as artistic creation has been done as a religious action. More over, farshchian is relataed to social structure and condition in fifties. In this decade, he has a critical position toward cultural and political situation. His criticizing of modern styles of painting and alienation of modern artist is so clear. On the other hand, suppression of people in that decade has affected his works unconsciously and conscously.”under dominatin of power” is an example of direct and conscous political criticizing, but “panah” is indirectly affected. The artist unintentionaly has criticized the suppression of people by Pahlavid regime in half of fifties(1350) and then has refered to “asylum” topic  with a special visual structure. Mahmood Farshchian has formed the visual structure of “panah” painting by using concentrated composition, empty space, nonfigurative and colorless anatomy of imam to reduce materiality and induce helplessness of the Shiite under suppression. This structure represents the collective sense of shiite people toward the dominated condition in which the artist lives.

Our consideration of “Panah creation”, shows that Farshchian himself is more affected by informal structure of society or traditional pattern of relations especially family relations and Shiite collective ceremonies than modern and formal social structure. On the other hand, the work has been formed under the social condition and collective shiite sense in which shiite people are suppressed. It means that his visual arrangements are unconsciously affected by social suppression which has formed the elements and their composition.