Persian art

“ As marvellous, and perhaps even more exquisite as works of art, are the slender Persian volumes, love-poems and prayers, inscribed in delicate characters of the East, with pictures of shahs and houris, and leather covers, so wonderfully embossed and inlaid and beautifully coloured that no description could give the faintest idea of their perfection. ”

“ Very slowly it is becoming possible to construct a history of Persian painting. Until quite lately all attempts were frustrated by what is sure to frustrate the attempts of the first historians of any "school" or "slope," or, for that matter, of any subject whatever—a false point of departure. So long as it was supposed that Behzad was the first mature master of Persian painting, Persian art-historians were as inevitably out in their conjectures as were the people who used to believe that Raphael was what they would have called "the fons et origo" of European painting. ”

“ Persian Art.—At the first moment of the history of art, the divine principle, God, appears identified with nature and man. In the worship of the Lama, for example, a real man is adored as God. In other religions the sun, the mountains, the rivers, the moon, and animals, are also the objects of religious worship.
The spectacle of this unity of God and nature is presented to us in the most striking manner in the life and religion of the ancient Persians, in the Zend-Avesta. ”

“ Yet another field remains to the Persian artist—that of engraving on gold, silver, brass, copper, and iron. Here the work is usually artistically good, and always original, no two pieces being alike.
Something must be said about the artist and his studio. Abject poverty is the almost universal lot of the Persian artist. He is, however, an educated man, and generally well-read. ”

“ Bookbinding in Persia is an art, and not a trade; and here the flower and bird painter finds his employment. Bright bindings of boards with a leather back are decorated by the artist, principally with presentments of birds and flowers, both being a strange mixture of nature and imagination; for if a Persian artist in this branch thinks that he can improve on nature in the matter of color, he attempts it. The most startling productions are the result ”

“ HISTORIC OUTLINE. ORIGIN OF PERSIAN LITERATURE—ACCAD AND SUMER—LITERATURE OF NINEVEH—BABYLON—ĪRĀN OR PERSIA—PHYSICAL FEATURES—PERSIAN ART—MANUSCRIPTS—EARLY LITERATURE—THE ARABIAN CONQUEST—LITERATURE OF MODERN PERSIA—PERSIAN ROMANCE.
Every nation has a literature peculiarly her own, even though it may find its sources in foreign fields. As Persia was founded upon the ruins of more ancient monarchies, as she gathered into the halls of her kings the spoils of conquered nations, so also her literature was enriched by the philosophy and science, the poetry and mythology of her predecessors. ”

“ Leaving aside the wonderful blending of colours in native carpets, tapestries, and embroideries, all of which improve by the toning influence of age, the modern Persian colourist is remarkable for his skill in the constant use of numerous gaudy and incongruous colours, yet making one harmonious and effective whole, which surprises us by its daring, but compels our reluctant admiration.
Persian pictorial art is original, and it is cheap; the wages of a clever artist are about one shilling and sixpence a day. ”

“ Persian art has been essentially industrial, and it is claimed that what is known as Russia leather was first manufactured in Persia, while legend says, that the artisans achieved their success by carrying their work to the peak of Mount Elvend, where the lightnings imparted a peculiar value to the texture.
The arts of Nineveh, of Babylon, and of Egypt culminated in the ages past, but the rare porcelains, tiles, and mosaics—the vases and carved metals of Persia, are still the pride of Asia. ”

“ If we listen to the nightingale it is but to follow the bird with our own emotions; we think of the grape-juice, and call it "the breaker of our cares." Among the Persians, however, the rose is no mere image or ornament, no symbol, but itself appears to the poet as possessed with a soul, as loving bride, and he transpierces with his spirit the rose's very heart. Precisely the same character of a gorgeous Pantheism is still impressed on the most modern Persian poems. ”

“ The under-current forces, which determine our own civilization of to-day, are in a general way the same forces which were at play during the heyday of Persian literary production. We owe to the Hellenic spirit, which at various times has found its way into our midst, our love for the beautiful in art and in literature. We owe to the Semitic, which has been inbreathed into us by religious forms and beliefs, the tone of our better life, the moral level to which we aspire. The same two forces were at work in Persia. ”

“ Even then, however, although in Mohammedan art the representation of animals is forbidden, the Persians were neutral and independent; in Persian design animals have been freely introduced, and with charming decorative effect. It is supposed, indeed, that Persian art is really 180 the source of invention of many forms commonly called Arabian and Indian, and these forms have travelled both east and west, and have been modified in the countries of their adoption. The Persians seem to have been in Asia much what the Greeks were in Europe—both great adaptors and great originators in design. ”

“ A FEW NOTES ON PERSIAN ART.
The limner’s art in Persia has few patrons, and the professional draughtsman of the present day in that country must needs be an enthusiast, and an art-lover for art’s sake, as his remuneration is so small as to be a mere pittance; and the man who can live by his brush must be clever indeed. The Persians are an eminently practical people, and buy nothing unless it be of actual utility; hence the artist has generally to sink to the mere decorator ”

“ The Persian and Mesopotamian civilisation triumphed in its glorious use of coloured glaze decoration, which has been carried westward to Syria and Rhodes, and still continues in the vast domes of coloured tiles in Spain.
In Arab art we meet the exquisite calm of geometrical design with various angles, which cannot be analysed at a glance like a Roman pavement: they arrest the eye to linger over them, to seek how they arise, and what they mean.
Further east, it is difficult for us to enter sufficiently into the fundamental feelings of the races, to enable us to value their art truly. ”

“ Such things as these, which, as far as I know, are only found in Persian art at its best, do carry the art of mere pattern-designing to its utmost perfection, and it seems somewhat hard to call such an art uncivilised. ”

“ All the familiar motifs of Persian art, the tree of life and other floral types, the cypress tree, the flower-vases, fruits, wine-cups, and rose-water vessels are here reproduced exactly as they are found in Persian mosaic tiles. In Shah Jahan's palace and in the Taj they went a step further, and imitated the more naturalistic treatment of Persian fresco painting and other pictorial art; but there is never the slightest suggestion of European design in the decoration of these buildings. ”

“ The Persian art, however, which has had the most influence upon the neighbouring Asiatic countries, and upon Europe, has been produced since the Arabian conquest in the seventh century, and the conversion of the country to the Mohammedan faith. ”

“ Many similar oil-paintings were executed for the writer by Persian artists, giving graphic renderings of the manners and customs of this little-known country. They were always equally spirited, and minutely correct as to costume and detail, at the same low price; a small present for an extraordinarily successful performance gladdening the heart of the artist beyond his expectations.
As to original work by Persian artists in water-colour, remuneration is the same—so much per diem. A series of water-colours giving minute details of Persian life were wished ”

“ The achievements of the Persians in art, literature and religion are by no means contemptible, but somewhat mixed and cosmopolitan. Owing to its position, the Persian state, when it from time to time became a conquering empire, overlapped Asia Minor, Babylon and India, and hence acted as an intermediary for transmitting art and ideas, sending for instance Greek sculpture to India and the cult of Mithra to western Europe. ”

“ The Persians could the more easily forego the revetment of their walls with carved slabs, after the Assyrian fashion, as their architecture itself, far more than that of Mesopotamia, fulfilled its own aim,—accomplished with its own means what was elsewhere effected by sculpture and painting.
With Persian statues in the full round we have no acquaintance. Several examples remain of colossal monsters in the half round, like those met with in Assyrian sculpture. In conception and in detail, in proportion and in situation, they scarcely differ from those of Assyria: they are only somewhat stiffer ”

“ They have truly been always an art-loving people. Some one has aptly remarked that every home in India is a nursery of art, and I think this must once have been true of the home in Persia. Apropos of Persian ornament it may be remarked that the native artists have always delighted in varied and symmetrical patterns of great intricacy. External beauty, too, seems to have been sought, rather than intrinsic thorough excellence of fabrique, excepting, of course, the products of the Persian looms and the works of the masters in metal. ”

“ Though we cannot speak of monumental independence in Persian sculpture and painting—of which, indeed, no ancient Orientals had any conception—the art of the land had at least the superiority that its three branches, in their application, stood in true relations to each other, inasmuch as architecture employed and brought forward the sister arts as secondary, decorative aid; painting and sculpture did not predominate in the excessive degree characteristic of the older nations of the East. ”

“ Whosoever, for instance, has wondered at the work of Persian looms, or felt the fascination of the manuscripts illuminated by the artists of Iran, or noted the unfailing grace of subtle line revealed in their metal-work, will feel that for this race also the merit of a work of art did not reside in its category, but in the degree to which it manifested the spirit which alone could ennoble it, the spirit of beauty. ”

“ Persian literature, while scanty, embodied poetical conceptions, and several of the ancient poems possess much art. "The Persians had fancy and imagination, a relish for poetry and art, and they were not without a certain power of political combination. Yet we cannot justly ascribe to them any high degree of intellectual excellence. ”

“ Or I sit and chat with the artists on the upper story of the caravanserai Gulshan, who each in his little room is hard at work on some bookcover or pencase, or possibly is illustrating a manuscript copy of Hafiz or Saadi, and chatting with whom [201] I learn a good deal of the inner side of Persian life. I look over the work of my artist friends, who do not press me to buy, but who do descant on the falling off in art in Persia. ”

“ Persian sculpture received its most extensive application upon the buttresses of the steps placed before every palace. Here are found the ceremonial scenes of the Assyrian courts in a feeble rendering, far removed from the sharp and careful cutting of the details, and the naturalistic modelling of the bodies, peculiar to the works of Mesopotamia. Long processions of men represent different nationalities, characterized by their costumes and by the treatment of hair and beard ”

“ And consider the character of the engraving—it consists of a mythological animal, and some words, of which the letters "Has" only are distinguishable. But the animal, at least, is pure Persian. The Persians, you know, were not only quite worthy competitors with the Hebrews, the Egyptians, and later on the Greeks, for excellence in the glyptic art, but this fact is remarkable, that in much the same way that the figure of the scarabaeus on an intaglio or cameo is a pretty infallible indication of an Egyptian hand, so is that of a priest or a grotesque animal a sure indication of a Persian. ”

“ The Persians are direct descendants of the Zend people. Their language is nearly the same as Sanskrit. Out of ten Zend words, seven or eight are Sanskrit.
Persian history may be traced back into time relative; for, when it passes into time absolute, the advanced state of the people in science, especially in astronomy, their social condition, and their architecture and ornamental art, prove that they must have existed in a social bond for thousands of years, in order to develop and to attain that progress which excites our astonishment even after the lapse of more than 6,000 years. ”

“ In Persia the Aryans acquired, for the first time, a kind of collective freedom, but not yet an individual consciousness as free agents. The Indian language and Indian metaphysics, in the garb of mythology, were undoubtedly components of Egyptian, Persian, Assyrian, Chaldæan, and Babylonian art, and the forms thus produced, in their turn, became the direct elements out of which Grecian art in its infancy developed itself. ”

“ The vaulting is most ingenious and beautiful, and its forms, whether executed in brick or in plaster, are sufficiently varied without resort to the perplexing complications of stalactite work. In Persian decoration the most striking qualities are the harmony of blended color, broken up into minute patterns and more subdued in tone than in the Hispano-Moresque, and the preference of flowing lines and floral ornament to the geometric puzzles of Arabic design. Persian architecture influenced both Turkish and Indo-Moslem art, which owe to it a large part of their decorative charm. ”