NEGAREH
Year:2014 | Volume:9 | Issue:31|Papers Count:6

The value of "Scribing" among Muslims and especially writing Holy Quran as the word of revelation in the Islamic world has such an authority that has attracted a wide range of arts and artists in the field of book decoration with the intention of approach to God. Addressing such important affairs and providing the chance of stepping into this sacred area requires competence and dignity which cannot be achieved so easily, but it does not only lead to proficiency in performance. During the history of Islam, few mystics, philosophers and artists have had the honor of achieving such merit, and a few of them dared to register their names as "scribers". Studying these inscriptions has provided the researchers with valuable and important information about the name of the scribers as well as recognition of different styles of the Quranic manuscripts in different eras and is, in fact, the identification for these heavenly books.Therefore observation and study of the nationally registered Qurans in the Museum of Holy Quran became the main motive and aim of this fundamental research and 6 samples of these Qurans bearing inscription were selected. Finally, the inscriptions were studied with a descriptive-analytical approach and the most important finding is that dissimulation and moral commitment of Quran scribers influenced by religious rituals and spiritual practices have bound the artists to observe humility while registering their names beside the great verses of Quran. Such registration style is less often seen in inscription of non-Quranic manuscripts.

The arts of book owe their progress and development to the high status of the holy Quran and its authority for the Muslims. Following the advent of Islam in Iran, inscription and ornamentation of the Quranic pages gained an especial significance and the richest ornamentations and proportions appeared in the first pages of Quran manuscripts. Page layout is one of the dependent and significant arts of the book and Quran inscription which establishes a proportionate relationship between the components of a page. In this research the page layout principles in the opening pages of Quran manuscripts from the 5th to the 12th Centuries of the Hegira were studied to better identify the masterpieces of the Islamic art. The results of the research showed there are similar roots in divisions, proportions and compositions of the opening pages of Quran manuscripts from these periods which confirm that the layout traditions and achievements have been passed on. The opening pages of Quran manuscripts were significant in following harmonious and golden ratios, logical divisions and arrangements of the elements and using the possibilities of inscription and free spaces in organizing the pages. They were designed based on a geometric model. This paper was conducted using descriptive-analytical method, based on library sources and observation of the collected samples.

Although researchers disagree about the prophet’s first illustration, it should be accepted that following the emergence of the Ilkhanids in Iran, iconography made considerable progress, and the question here is why prior to this era, illustration of prophet hasn’t been paid much attention to by Muslim painters? In other words, why Muslims were not influenced by the Christian iconography when they were introduced to the Christian civilization and culture? The aim of this essay is to find out the context and reasons of reluctance of the artists to prophet’s iconography through the criticism of art historians' views and the scrutiny of the influence of jurisprudence of illustration. The findings of this research indicate that the scientific and legendary contents of the books chosen for illustration didn't provide the painters with a context for iconography, and principles of the Muslims and prophets' high statuses on the other hand, didn't create the tendency for the painters in order to be able to do iconography. The research is conducted based on library sources, using analytical- descriptive method.

Hand woven carpets have a relatively short lifespan and durability due to the properties of the materials used in them. This issue has caused the archeological and historical studies and researches related to this product plenty of problems. This inadequacy in evaluation of carpet history in Islamic Iran is most tangible in the first five centuries of the Hegira. In this research, with the aim of identifying the condition of Iranian carpet weaving in the first five centuries of the Hegira, due to the diversity of hand woven carpet types as well as the geography of production regions, written sources (historical and literary) have been used. This article uses historical method and library sources. The research results express that despite the rarity of works related to the hand woven carpets of the mentioned period, the names of many contemporary carpets, like: rugs, short-napped coarse carpet, coarse woolen cloth, felt carpet, mat, pileless carpet and so on, are traceable in written sources. Also regions of Deylaman, Khorasan, Azerbaijan, Pars, Iraq and, Transoxiana are the most prominent centers which carpet weaving had been common in them.

In the year of the Hegira 617, Mongols, continuing their conquests, reached Iran and brought massive destructions. Many main pottery centers of Iran were destroyed and never regained their past glory. At the end of this century, the production of under glazed pottery, known as the general title of Sultanabad (a region in Arak) pottery, increased in Iran. Examples of these products can be found in Kashan, Kerman, Bojnourd and other centers, which archaeological findings cannot give an exact answer as to the exact location of their production. It seems that proposing an approach to the study of these types is possible based on the formal elements.In this study, we tried to extract and classify the characteristics of the under glazed bowls in cases such as: shape of the body, composition structure of motifs and decorations through the comparison of various samples. This article attempts to answer these questions: what are the special indicators of Sultanabad under glazed bowls? And what formal indicative aspects stand out in the observation of these types? This research is based on library sources and uses descriptive- analytical method. Results indicate that bodies are generally shaped either conical or trumpet shaped, imitating the Chinese Celadon; and motifs including various ranges of plants, animals, humans, compounds, geometries and inscriptions, are placed in three general positions of scattered, circular and radial on the bowls. Also, the origin of some of the motifs was the continuity of Iran’s visual tradition, which is a remnant of a distant past; and others are under the influence of the Chinese visual culture which was widespread in this period.

Belief in evil eye is one of the common and old beliefs throughout the world including the Islamic world; although this belief is weakened these days, it can still be observed and found in folk culture.In this research the traces of the belief in evil eye are tracked in the art and the wovens of common people as the bearers of this belief, and the course of its metamorphosis is studied in the related motifs up to the contemporary era.This research aims for expressing the influence of beliefs on the folk art especially rural wovens. One of the basic theses of this research proposes a relation between depictions and motifs of the evil eye with the shape of the eye itself. The research method is analytical and comparative and data is gathered through field research and library sources, in an attempt to find the common visual depictions of the evil eye.It seems that there is a meaningful relation between the evil eye amulets in wovens with the shape of eye itself. As a result the triangular shapes with inner circles are among the common visual motifs of evil eye.