Representation of Building in Persian Painting and its Role in the Expansion of the Picture Space and Perspective

Following figures, buildings are the second most efficacious visual element in Persian painting. Even in the oldest paintings in which landscape was not expressive of the space, there used to be a building to organize the space in three dimensions. In the historical path of Persian painting, buildings had this role in all periods because Iranian artists used to illustrate stories in some of which a building, such as a royal palace, garden, fortress, castle, an alcove, or aula was a location of the fictional events.
In Persian painting, buildings are not only locations in which the stories take place, but they also narrate the unwritten parts of stories or as Stephen G. Nicholas (1989) argues, they uncover “textual unconscious”. Having some features such as being crowded or vacant, having one or multi floors, and simple or complicated plans, buildings can inspire viewers with different perceptions of spatial structure, some of which do not proceed with the written texts.
Based on the three-dimensional Cartesian coordination system, representation of buildings can expand the picture space along the three dimensions. It increases the height by depicting multiple floors. It opens the field of view through arrangement of the rooms and halls side by side, and enlarges the width of the scene, as well. In addition, it develops depth of the scene by placing the represented figures inside and outside the buildings. By doing so, several picture planes are formed in the scene; so a viewer understands the depth clearly.
While representation of buildings provides many visual facilities for painters, it also troubles them in case of displaying the 3rd dimension on the sheet. Since a building is a hollow and polyhedron geometric volume (especially cubes or cuboids), and since it needed to be displayed on the two-dimensional paper, painters were in need of applying some methods to create visual errors for the viewers, so that they could perceive the third dimension. Persian painters used to untangle the troubles of these methods since the medieval era.
This research, based on the idea about buildings’ roles and visual facilities, probes the functions and consequences of representations of buildings in Persian paintings, and shows how Iranian painters used to fabricate the illusive 3rd dimension to place the visual elements on three axes: height, width, and depth. Although some scholiasts believe that Persian painting is a two-dimensional art and Persian painters used to avoid displaying perspective deliberately, scrutiny of master artworks reveal Persian painters’ endeavor to display picture space, especially the 3rd dimension. As it were, same as we know about efficiency of three-dimensional representations based on the coordination system, Persian painters were experienced in efficiency of the buildings’ representation to expand the three-dimensional space. Clearly, it does not mean that Persian artists used to adopt Cartesian coordination system to organize the picture space. However, it can be argued that they could understand it either intuitively or based on their contemporary scientific achievements.
As it has been mentioned before, Persian painters, similar to the renaissance guild mates, used various methods to display the picture space; these methods were not the same as those used by the renaissance artists. This difference should not cause modern viewers to assume that Persian painting was two-dimensional art. Persian painters never established the vanishing point. Therefore, the modern viewers fail to perceive a three-dimensional space in Persian painting. As a result of this many questions emerged, some of which arise from the fact that modern art researchers have neglected to compile the history of Persian painting’s evolutions of methods and techniques, especially about picture space. The present research tries to address some of these questions that are listed below.

When did the first attempts of displaying the picture space take place in Persian Painting and which manuscripts contain them?
What were the roles of different Persian painting schools in legislating, changing, and confirming the rule of representation of the picture space?
What were the main challenges in establishing the methods of displaying the three-dimensional space?
What visual facilities were produced as a result of the establishment of these methods?

To shed light on Persian painting’s rules and styles in representing the picture space and to answer these questions, I analyzed around 100 illustrated Persian manuscripts, created between 12th to 16th centuries and selected more than 400 paintings each including a building (e.g., a castle, palace, mosque, etc.). To analyze the picture space in these paintings, I focused on the expansion of the space along height, width, and depth, based on which I answered the research questions. The results of this research are as follows:
The Expansion of Height: Displaying multistorey buildings is one of the most reputed methods to expand the height. Persian painters used to draw a two/three-storey building for this purpose and sometimes break the picture frame to continue the picture, especially since Ilkhanid era onwards. By doing so, the view could be stretched to the top of the paper, and beyond the frame.

In addition to the expansion of height, multistorey buildings had other functions in Persian painting. Two of the most frequent functions are inspiring symbolic concepts and presenting inverted height. In some paintings, dating back to the 15th century, several angels can be seen on roof-tops and other creatures arranged on the lower floors. Based on the verses surrounding these painting, viewers could recognize this arrangement as a symbolic representation of the chain of beings. Similarly, some multistorey buildings in the 15th-16th century paintings do not represent height. Buildings in these paintings which have been drawn based on the plans of the old hammams (bath houses), were arranged vertically in a way that the top floor (i.e., an apodyterium) represented the proceeding room and the entrance to the building. In this type of arrangement, drawing one room (i.e., a tepidarium) under the other does not represent a basement, but a sequential order. Therefore, in these paintings two-storey buildings do not show a real height.

The Expansion of Width: Since pre-Mongol period, to give viewers a sense of width, Persian painters used to display several rooms side by side. Other innovative methods were added/created during the following eras. One of the most creative methods was placing a building at the far right/left side of the picture frame, as if the picture frame was interrupting the continuation of the sight and preventing the viewer from seeing the rest of the building. This way, the width of scene could be recognized wider than what the painter actually had drawn on the sheet.
The Expansion of the Depth: Persian artists used to display the depth of scene based of two principles in painting that are as follows:Arranging Picture Planes: The oldest illustrated manuscripts reveal that their painters knew organizing picture planes and adjusting the distance between them will display the depth clearly. Having multiple sides (i.e., outside/inside and back/front), buildings provided great opportunities for the creation of depth. By placing some figures behind a window, through which those people looked at the main scene, Persian artists could communicate a sense of depth to their viewers.
Representation of a Building's Volume: Persian artists, especially since Ilkhanid period, started the first efforts to draw a three-dimensional building. Between the 13th and 16th centuries, Persian painters gradually overcame difficulties in displaying buildings’ volumes. The most important achievements and methods in this path are as follows:

Lateral, vertical or climbing staggering;
Multidirectional walls;
Interior space of buildings;
Hexagonal and octagonal plans;
Trapezoidal façades inside the buildings;
Separated interior space created by non-load bearing walls;
A combination of all methods.