Since the early years of 1950, which represent the development period of Modern Iraqi art, the “return to the roots” movement has been an impartible mainstream in Iraq. The first generation of Modern artists like Jewad Salim and Shakir Hassan Al-Said considered “cultural continuity” and the link between “tradition and Modernity” and “inspiration from heritage1” as the main essence of their artistic creation and bequeathed this approach to their next generation.Having analyzed and described a selection of artworks of Modern Iraqi artists, this paper discusses the evolution of Modern Iraqi art, and aims to determine cultural and artistic continuity in Modern Paintings of Iraq. It also seeks to answer the questions that investigate the socio-cultural factors that underlie the formation of art and establish a link between traditional and Modern ideas and lead to continuity in tradition. Therefore, the research hypothesis is put to scrutiny on the basis of Robert wuthnow’s theory.According to Wuthnow, although configuration and the objective production of this movement is rooted in the “mobilization of resources”, the artistic content and approach of the Painting movement (i.e. the continuation of the tradition along with addressing Modern ideas) is influenced by factors such as “social Horizon”, “existing discursive context” and “cultural capital” of the painters.Research results that are derived from historical-analytical methods reveal that Modern Iraqi artists used the four Islamic, pre-Islamic or Mesopotamian, Modern source and folkloric sources to create Paintings which were Modern and Iraqi at the same time that could be definitely called “Modern Iraqi art”. The impact of these mentioned sources can be seen in form and content or generally in aesthetic values of these works which are obviously traceable in large exaggerated Sumerian eyes, dark and thick tracing lines in Abbasid Painting, indigenous colors and amulet, letters, Islamic calligraphy, crescent, dome, and themes of the Karbala incident. It can be asserted that the Iraqi artist depicts the forms and contents that offer a strong link to “place”, which is “Iraq”, as the place is the most important element in maintaining and preserving identity.

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In contemporary times, due to social-cultural conditions and the idea of Modernity and reflection of Western culture and art, Iranian painters refer to past Painting so that revive Islamic Iranian identity and culture. Hossein Behzad is as the most significant contemporary painter of this period of time. This research which aims at study Hossein Behzad's miniature Painting in contemporary times, using Gadamer's hermeneutic concepts with a descriptive-analytical approach and collecting information by using library resources, admittance is answered the question how much the painter's artwork of this era fit into Gadamer's hermeneutic theory. In this regard, he talks to the art of the Safavid period, and consider that the whole truth is not with him. Therefore, he enters elements of the Safavid art into his era, which entails a struggle between tradition and Modernity. Since the thought of Modernity and the reference to western art after the constitutional revolution in Iranian art and culture has proceeded, artists in the thought of reviving the identity of Iranian Islamic art have brought past miniature Paintings, especially Paintings of the Safavid and Herat schools, to revive traditional and national arts based on their contemporary art and culture, which is in accordance with Gadamer's hermeneutic theory. In other words, Hossein Behzad, according to Gadamer's Modern hermeneutic theory, based on his prejudices, which is the result of the semantic horoscope of his time, talks with the art of Painting in the Safavid school and with its Iranian Islamic influences. He corresponds to the semantic horoscope of his time, which has western influences, and finally creates an image that belongs to the time, culture and social conditions of his era and the formation of the style that belongs to him and his age. He paid attention to the anatomy and perspective and the principles of naturalism, which was immaterial in the Safavid school miniature Paintings, and applied in a way that did not harm Modern contemporary art and adapted to the horizon of his time. He appreciated the style of Reza Abbasi, who, to some extent, ignored the principles of Mongolian style from Iranian miniature Painting and at the same time paid attention to design as an important part of Painting. Meanwhile, we found the concepts of Gadamer's hermeneutic, that it can describe and expand in contemporary miniature Painting, especially Behzad's artworks. The artist talks to the semantic horizons of Safavid period, and he is with the semantic horizon of our time, the age of conflict between tradition and Modernity, create the artwork. The contemporary painter, referring to the past Painting, especially the Safavid school, elements of Iranian art, bring that era to the pictures of his time. It is adapted and created by the semantic horizon of its age. Gadamer argues that the interpreter interferes with the prejudices that fit his own period in interpretation. As well as texture and social and cultural context are also effective in creating the work, this is important in contemporary miniature Painting in the compilation between traditional and western elements.

The structure and form of any Paintings, in addition to reflecting the inner spirit of the artist, can be influenced by environmental factors, which are sometimes associated with social factors or swayed by political events of the time. In light of the changes in the structure of Modern Iranian Painting in 1968-2011 period, the question that arises is “ What environmental factors have affected the structure and diverse trends of Modern Iranian painters? ” It appears that variables such as social, political and cultural events as well as the pace of communication developments have a huge bearing on structural changes in Modern Iranian Paintings in each decade. Therefore, this study aims to explore environmental-cultural variables along with the structure of works in each decade. The results of this descriptive-analytical research suggest that environmental factors could be spilt into two general categories of internal and external factors. The internal factors encompass social and cultural changes in each period such as the Islamic Revolution and the Cultural Revolution movement, art festivals and journals, IT expansion, the opening and development of art galleries, the increasing passion of young people for art and the proliferation of schools and external factors. It also embraces the relatively strong presence of Iranian artists in international festivals, the sale of Iranian works of art in global markets, the invitation of foreign artists, and trips of Iranian artists abroad. Overall, it seems that the transformation of the Iranian Painting structure in this period has already been influenced by new approaches to art in the West.

Visual appearance has always dominated the focus of scholars in the study of Persian Paintings, which has led to – at times totally – neglecting their content. Few studies that have so far addressed the content of Persian Paintings are mostly subjective with un-systematic approaches that are, in the best instances, based on methodologies that are formulated with reference to European art and cultural history. In this article, Iconology is discussed as one of the methodologies that has been frequently applied to Persian Paintings unconditionally – by employing the method exactly as it is applied to European Paintings during the past years. This article deals with the limits and shortcomings of the Iconological approach in analyzing the content of Persian Painting – particularly pre-Modern ones. In case we intend to examine the content of Paintings from an Iconological point of view, then a primary question is how to define and delimit the unit of meaning generation. As a tentative delimitation for practical purposes, this paper shall define an icon, the carrier of meaning and the object of Iconological study, as a presented object which transfers a concept or a notion or suggests a person or a thing. Obviously, in this definition, the unit of meaning is not necessarily singular and could be formed by various associations among presented objects to form clusters. Also, given the referential element implied in the definition, it should be clear that the presented object is examined in terms of previous representations of the same topic with regards to the culture it was created in: as such, an icon gains significance from outside of the Painting and carries an established meaning that helps identification in other contexts. With this understanding of a unit of meaning in the Iconological approach, the analysis of the method shall be developed with reference to Panofsky’ s tripartite phases of understanding, which are also fundamental to the approaches proposed after him: the pre-iconographical, the iconographical and the iconological stages of interpretation. The three levels of Iconological meaning detailed are intended to describe how the method is a step forward from the descriptive approach in analyzing Paintings, but they cannot be turned into a pre-established grid to be imposed on various Paintings. They explain potential layers of meaning, but they do not imply that the actual processes of mind are being described. This could be highlighted by the fact that the formation of a visual tradition in Persian Painting underwent a transformation in its history which challenges tradition as such. Books of poetry were frequently illustrated and calligraphed under the patronage of kings, making royal book illustration a tradition. At the same time, the subjects of royal books were mostly the canons of Persian literature. Due to constant repetition of the same wellknown subjects and their visual conventions, the formation of a presentational tradition was facilitated and Iconological study of illustrations seems to be justified. From the sixteenth century onwards, Persian kings gradually decreased their commissions on royal books and support of the royal libraries for various reasons. This put an end to the collective artistic work and led to the production and proliferation of other forms. One results was the emergence of other art patrons and subsequently new subjects, characters, narratives, concepts, etc. in Persian Paintings. This put and end to a continuous artistic and visual tradition not only because unprecedented subjects were introduced, but also because the collective memory that sustained the tradition disappeared. Since Iranian culture was fundamentally orally oriented, it is not hard to imagine that some stories or themes were illustrated but were not documented, one way or another, fully or partially, thus making them currently unidentifiable. At the same time, since the subjects of Paintings become more varied, hardly any non-royal subjects were portrayed more than a few times. This decreased the possibility of the formation of visual conventions by relying on former presentations of the same subject by its repetition for recognition. Besides, the aesthetic of visual representation in itself, emerging in the relationships that are thus produced, are excluded from Iconological analysis. Moreover, what we know about a specific period’ s culture is sometimes very limited and practically unhelpful in Iconological analysis. Due to lack of sufficient social and cultural data that would lead to recognition of the symbolic value of presented objects, the Iconological study of Paintings encounters difficulties. As a result, the three levels of Iconological meaning cannot be turned into a pre-established grid to be imposed on all the pre-Modern Persian Paintings. Hopefully, this way the necessity of introducing systematic methodologies for the study of the content of Persian Painting, based on culture and history of Persian art, will be felt by scholars who are studying Persian art.

Modern (theoretical) physics seems to be in deep crisis today as many of its core aspects are not empirically well-confirmed. Heated exchanges among physicists on the scientific status of physical theories with little or, at best, a tenuous connection to possible experimental tests is highly visible in the popular scientific literature. Some physicists (e.g., Carroll 2014, 2019; Ijjas et al., 2017) argue that science must discard empirical testability as one of its defining properties and the highly explanatory theories of present-day physics should be exempted from experimental testing, while others (e.g., Ellis & Silk 2014) spot in these arguments (for softening the testability or falsifiability requirement for Modern physics) a dangerous tendency to undermine science. The philosopher of science who naturally draws most attention in these current debates is Karl Popper (1902-1994). His views, however, are often misrepresented in these debates. The prime objective of this paper is to explain how a more enlightened perspective on the ongoing debates can be obtained by a careful scrutiny of the Popperian criterion of falsifiability. As a first step in achieving this objective we will analyze the two major (conceptual) failures on which the current controversies rest. Our next step will be examining the controversial string theory to see whether the criteria of falsifiability is a ‘blunt instrument’ for determining its scientific status.

Mahmoud Saba (Mahmoud Khan Malek-ol Shoara Sabaye Kashani) can be considered the best example and model of Modernity in Painting in the Qajar era. He neither lost his essence and his roots, nor was saturated in the principles of Western art. Indeed, the pillars of his perspective were innovation and creating new images by mixing Iranian artistic tradition with the principles and rules of European Painting. In his precise and photographic Paintings of buildings and other scenes of Tehran during the age of Nasseredin Shah, he used his great talent in perspectives and reproduction of the quality of light. His simple and unpretentious works embodies international evolution and reflects his age and time. It is for this reason that his works has both artistic and historic merit. Methodology of this interpretative- analytical research is based on the phenomenology of "Edmund Husserl", and the data brought together from documents, books, art works, and Paintings.

Modern Iranian Painting emerged and developed between 1940 and 1970 A. D. and became the dominant current in the field of visual arts of Iran. The Khorus Jangi Society which consisted of a group of pioneering artists had an important role to establish this new current. The continuity and authority of this current is not only owed to the producers and distributors of Modern works of art but also to the consumers-audiences of them. Although the emergence and continuation of Modern paintiongs was understandable along the policy of Modernization, and cultural developments in Iran, it was not understandable for all urban classes. At the same time, the efforts of artists and the government to reduce the distance between people in general and these works of art were not very successful. Main question is about the origin and social class dependency of these audiences. Collecting information from the mentioned texts, and comparing them with the result of sociological studies about classes and social strata in Iran, has not only been effective in determining the accuracy and validity of this scattered information but also to some extent has clarified the class origin of Modern Painting audiences. As a result, it can be said that most of the audience of Modern Painting, not all of them, was from the upper class and elite, and the urban middle class, including intellectuals and students in genral. Due to some cultural factors such as religious and customary beliefs, and fashionism resulting from the Modernization in Pahlavid era, it can not be inferred that all of mentioned classes had been consumers of Modern Paintings or at least the most sincere fans of it.

Introduction: The position of calligraphers, experienced and skilled artists has always been appreciated and respected in Iranian society. Mohammad Ehsai one of these expert calligraphers has great experience and a clear background in calligraphy and calligraphy Paintings. He has paved the way from traditional calligraphy to Modern style thoughtfully and patiently. He has a unique style in calligraphy Painting according to the development of his works in Persian art which arose from religious concepts, verses of the holy Qur'an, and hadiths. He has always obliged himself to observe the principles and rules of calligraphy and the word concepts in his works, as he created his works in a fascinating style with a dynamic balance of positive (Bayaz) and negative (Savad) spaces. In developing his character, there have been various stages from traditional to secular art. The current research covers and analyzes a wide range of his works, from traditional to Modern art. The main research question here is to address the classification of his works to comprehend their unique characteristics. The research aims to identify and classify his traditional and Modern works and identify the traditional elements of calligraphy as a traditional array in a Modern application.Research Method: This study has applied a qualitative research method by using written documents and library texts and observing the artist`s visual works.Findings: The achievement of this article is based on the artist world in the contemporary era both in ancient and Modern styles which implies his avant-Grade style of working, as it is surprising that while he is dealing with traditional styles of work in the form of Siyah-Mashgh, the Eternal Alphabet, practicing with holy words, he also actively creates post-Modern and secular artworks without any contradictions between these two fields.Conclusion: The environment of forming various calligraphy scripts of Mohammad Ehsai was formed under the influence of the Modern artist's movement, its coincidence with the formation of Modern academic centers in Iran, and also in consequence of opening the international relations of Iranian artists with their counterparts in other countries at that time, as this new life of the world along with teaching in the academic centers and learning the Modern graphic lessons together with its connection with his mastery in writing traditional calligraphy scripts all led him to a different path compared to his other peers, which was rather a distinct style compared to those artists like Pilaraom, Zinda Rudi and some others counterparts.