Quarterly Scientific-Research Goljaam

The arts are born out of the artist’s mind within the milieu of the culture of the period and the social environment. The craft of carpet weaving is no exception, as it is influenced by intellectual and cultural trends. Certain arts such as the art of the carpet have a very long life and have gone through the ages, while they are still alive. Such arts have obviously been influenced by various approaches and beliefs of each period, or have collaborated with various cultures due to the prevailing conditions. Symbolism is an integral part of Oriental art, and Iranian art and the art of the carpet, but at times we come across naturalism also. Therefore, the influence of naturalism on the art of the carpet is worthy of study. In this study using the library research method the hypothesis that “a kind of naturalism has been influential on the art of the carpet” has been tested. This study of the art of the carpet of the Islamic period has analyzed the available texts and pictures of carpet motifs and has confirmed the above hypothesis. The trend of naturalism in the Iranian carpet of the Islamic period has developed through the art of the royal courts since the Safavid period. It continued its development on the basis of Islamic ethics and culture through the Qajar period. However, since the Pahlavi era Western naturalism has influenced the art of the carpet also. In recent years, due to acceptance of Western culture as a result of the open door policies of the second decade since the revolution, as well as the propaganda programs of Western culture targeting Eastern countries, manifestations of Western naturalism in various arts including the carpet has increased.

Iranian rural carpets are an important resource for studying the rural art and culture of Iran. They are also the most important area for staging the talents of, especially, rural girls and women. The common aspects of visual elements bespeak the prevailing spirit in these works under the influence of interaction with nature and lessons learned thereby. Also the availability of materials in the rural environment has the greatest influence on the physical aspects of design and texture. Rural-urban interaction and that with the nomadic population, and adapting the imported patterns to rural life is an outstanding feature of rural carpets. Adaptability of rural carpets to traditional rural applications and architecture is truly remarkable. The aesthetics of these works reveals their underlying principles, and the characteristics of their creators, and helps understand their worldview and attitude to their environment. Perhaps, that will present us with the gift of a new understanding of existence. The last point is that rural carpets are distinguishable from the urban and nomadic varieties.

Each civilization make own culture and cultural productions that have sign of identification of that culture. Islamic civilization and its genuine culture is settled this identity in obey of god’s commands and Moslems are innovated some beautiful productions that symbol of this delivery. Prayer rug is one of these productions. It is necessary to Moslems to pray five times in a day. Among Turkmen people, it is necessary to exist one ore some prayer rug in bride’s trousseau. This inquiry is tried to introduce kinds of prayer rugs and their patterns and symbols.

As patterns of other Iranian handicrafts, carpet patterns are valuable and extensively rich sources of visual elements to be used in today’s graphical works whenever appropriate. Due to the fact that these patterns have paved a long way through the history of carpet-weaving, they have been evolved into distilled and beautiful patterns of precise and orderly design structures. It is a cultural necessity that graphics students be acquainted with these patterns and gain knowledge and expertise about them because using these patterns plays an important role in both increasing their visual literacy and creating cultural identity. Obviously, appropriate employment of these patterns requires both suitable knowledge of them and recognition of the right and opportune time of using them which in its turn, demands skill and experience of graphic designers while employing these patterns. In the case of lacking each of aforementioned items by designers, these patterns can not be used appropriately and their aesthetic and cultural aspects will be destroyed.

This article aims at studying the geometrical proportions of five types of most outstanding designs of Safavid carpets as one of the most important styles in carpet art of Iran. This research has been conducted using geometric methods of translation of measures and finding the basic module for identifying the proportions in carpets for to determination and comparison of modules with each other. Then the findings of the research have been compared with reference geometrical proportions of the Iranian geometry. Ultimately, the findings of this paper have been compared with special proportions present in decorative arts of the Timurids, Ilkhanid, and Seljuk periods, which possess special and specific proportions according to researchers, in order for determining the origin of this system of proportions. The results indicate that the carpets have general geometrical proportions. Such proportions include certain proportions between the pattern and dimensions of carpets.

European tapestries and Persian kilims are the most useful types of flat and non-pile textiles in both regions bearing differences in terms of appearance such as: design, motif and color and texture and also in terms of specific functions which have been assigned to them. This study, therefore, has been conducted with the aim of identifying and comparing these valuable handmade textiles so that it may provide some grounds for improvement and development of Persian kilims while preserving their artistic identity. Although Iranian kilims and European tapestries use similar tools and materials and weaving technologies, but due to certain cultural and spiritual characteristics of Iran and Europe, they are different in terms of designs and patterns, color compositions, sizes as well as functions. Library-based and documentary studies were performed for achieving the aim of the paper and reviewing and comparing these types of Iranian and European handmade textiles revealed many similarities and differences

Various Persian traditional arts can be understood as different aspects of a unique concept. All of them represent substantial meanings which root in both Islamic and Iranian beliefs. The symbolic language of these arts and the ability of being expressed in various arts let artists to choose proper methods for their work. Rug and architecture are the most important Persian arts and two aspects of Persian symbolic design methods. This paper tries to focus on Mihrabi rugs as a direct reflection of one of architectural components of mosque architecture in rug design as a suitable carpet for praying time. The paper intends to show how ancient and Islamic architectural symbols affect symbolic expression of these rugs and how these different arts show a homogeneous idea in terms of their own capacities. This study uses a descriptive method and a comparative semiotic approach from historical and iconographical viewpoint and traces the mosque architecture elements and symbolic plant designs of Mihrabi rugs. Paradigmatic process shows some evidences regarding designers’ efforts to represent triple structure of ancient Mithraism altars in the form of mosque space structures and heaven on the limited space of rugs by replacing a triple division of floral patterns instead of architectural structure of mosques in a symbolic way, so the middle tree represents the ancient tree of life and recalls the main dome and two cypresses with their roots in ground and their heads up to the sky are the symbols of minarets. This fulfills artist’s objective to demonstrate such rugs as mosques and linkage between heaven and earth. 

One of the prosperous periods of Persian commercial carpet industry is the Safavid era especially the 10th and 11th centuries (A.H.). Governments’ attention to arts and artists and expanding the facilities on the one hand, and willingness of other artists such as illumination artists and Persian painters’ to beautiful designs for carpets, along with the progress of the dyeing industry, provided carpet weaving with a special place in the field of art and industry. The main question of the present study is: Who were the carpet designers at different geographical locations and in different times for various woven products? The main hypothesis in this paper is that in Safavid era, some of carpets were designed by famous Persian paintings artists. For this purpose, a comparative method has been used for comparing two survived carpet samples with the paintings of that era. It can be seen that the most of the arts, including traditional arts and architecture, were closely related at that era which indicate the existence of a unified artistic management in the cultural system of that period, and such responsibility was undertaken by the prominent painters and architects. The comparison of motifs of paintings and carpet may indicate that some of the carpets have been designed by some great painters such as Kamal al-Din Behzad and Aghamirak Isfahani and Soltan Mohammad Iraqi, etc and there are some valuable carpets woven directly under the supervision of these masters. On the other hand, some carpet designers were trained who followed their masters and this indirectly influenced the development of carpet motifs, so that the carpet designers were mostly inspired by these masters in manufacturing workshops.

Arab tribe in Fars,which is a branch of Khamse :::::union:::::,enjoys ancient carpet-weaving tradition. All weavers of this tribe belong to Arab Jabbare :::::union:::::. It haslearnt Fars tradition of carpet-weaving sinceadoption of Islam by Iran and has transformed it accordingly. Because of the pastoral and nomadic life, some kinds of bag weavings have been woven by them. Carpetbag is the most important and current crafts of Arab tribe. This kind of weaving is the same as carpet and it is made in one or two leaves in square form for carrying loads. This paper tries to study the features of color, motifs and texture of carpetbags of Arab Jabbare in Fars. The research method is descriptive-analytical one and data collection is conducted in a combined way by desk study and fieldwork research. The findings show that weaving method consists of symmetrical knot number 3, twofold woof and colorful binding. Also dyeing method is “dark in the dark” which is the tradition of this Arab tribe and is used more or less in carpetbags. The motifsare divided into two groups: the first group which is based on small or large motifs organized to form a regular or irregular patternscontaining two birds, tree or all birds’ motifs. The second group contains a general pattern - often a regular one –where all other motifs are arranged in that framework and contains urban motifs of Fars and other regions. Arab weavers have also used patterns like Four-Fishes, Soori Flower, Bush, Bracelet pattern and Moharamat in their special tribal method for these carpetbags.