Bronstein, Leo

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THE ARTISTIC DESTINY OF IRANBY DR. LEO BRONSTEINAmerican Institute for Persian Art and ArchaeologyIX SPEAKING of the general tendencies of any civilization, oneeasily risks falling into the emptiness of imaginative phraseology.The personal quality in each individual creation, intangible in thelast analysis, and the essential variations w^hich the complexity ofthe material life of a people introduces into that civilization, forceus to be constantly on guard against lapsing into generalizations.Yet there is, nevertheless, one sphere w^here generalization is per-missible, where it is almost required, and even induced by the factsthemselves. This is the sphere in which all artistic cultures, nomatter how varied they mav be in their tinal expression, stylisticallyand technically, no matter how distant they may be, one from theother, in their physical geographical locations, participate in thesame universal psychological source of man's creations, which is:the manner with which the human eye grasps the external worldand guides the hand in the artistic representation of that world. Twoqualities have always marked this work of the human eye. One ofthese is the "stable" quality, where the forms are clearly defined,seriated, stable, each individual and distinct from the other ; thesecond is the "mobile" quality, where the forms appear to the visualconsciousness indissolubly attached to each other, one continuingthe other, and together forming a kind of collective ensemble, adynamic whole.We might say that art through the ages has passed through greatcycles, in which sometimes one and sometimes the other of thesetendencies has been dominant, and in some rare historic achieve-ments, both tendencies have united to create an art at once complexand of supreme harmony.What more stable, indeed, than the artistic creations of the civi-lizations of the ancient Mediterranean areas and of Western Asia?There was Egypt, where we find from the dawn of her culture ( forinstance, the ivory comb handle and an ivory handle of a fiat knifedecorated with processions of very naturalistic animals and birds of154 THE OPEN COURTCourtesy of American Institute for Persian Art and Archaeology.BRONZE HARNESS (?) ORNAMENT CRIMEA.A typical example of the art of outer Iran. A mare twisted around to bite hertail with a foal alongside. A vivid expression of viality and at the same timea poHverful and original pattern.the Pre-Dynastic period, before 3200 ]!. c. in the MetropoHtan Mu-seum of Art, New York) and throughout her history this tendencyto stabiHty, an art that affirms the existence of objects and Uvingbeings and depicts them well defined in space. There was Sumerand Akkad, in whose art we find the supreme and most powerfulexpressions of stability (for instance, the series of animals, onefollowing the other, yet detached from each other, on the monu-ments of the Jemdet Nasr epoch, or again, the statues of Gudea,the great prince of the Dynasty of Gutium) : and later, there wasTill-: ARTISTIC DPLSTINV OF IRAX 155Assyria, who, even in her most fluid imaginings, estabHshed a worldof seriated forms (for example, the bas-reliefs so rich in move-ment of the Assurbanipal epoch). There was Upper Syria (sculp-tures from the Palace of Zendjirli, about 850 b. c. ) ; Anatolia (stonebas-reliefs at Ivriz, eighth century b. c.) : and at last, Hellas, whoseart glorified movement in its fullest expression, yet who did notknow mobility itself.Directly opposed to this widespread movement of the static inart, there appeared, beginning historically about the eighth to sev-enth century B. c, this other tendency, which imposed its law ofdynamics over a large geographical area stretching from South Rus-sia to the Caucasus and spread from there over Siberia, Mongolia,and even China (the end of the Chou period and transition to theHan, third century b. c). This is the art known as Scytho-Sarma-tian or Scytho-Siberian, or as Rostovtzeff terms it of the "CentralAsiatic group." However enigmatic the origin of this art may stillbe, no matter how diverse its various local manifestations, its "mo-bile" character remains unquestionable. This "animal style" isindeed one of forms .which are fused, continuous, not serialized inspace. It is one of collective ensembles, not subordinated to thecanon of naturalism, but forming all together strange, complexobjects (page 154), so different from the fantastic monsters, symbolicor magic, of Mesopotamia, which, in spite of the various single partsof the dififerent animals, griffons, winged bulls, etc., of which theyare formed retain an absolutely individual character. Whether theseinnumerable Scytho-Sarmatian objects, chiefly in gold (belt buckles,open-work plaques, etc.) come from the region of Perm, from Bul-garia, from the Kuban or the Altai, or even Mongolia, they all bearthe imprint of one marked historical tendency.Between these two major tendencies, yet partaking of the natureof each, there arose in Asia a cultural force, a synthesis of the two:Iran.ft is impossible here to trace even summarily the economical andpolitical history of this participation. It exists and is known to his-torians. Its artistic history also exists, and it remains for the his-torian of Asiatic art to explore it further.The art of Pre-Islamic Iran provides little information alongthese lines. (The archaeological work being conducted at presentCourtesy of American Institute for Persian Art and Archaeology.ARCHER IN ENAMELLED TILES.Susa. From the Palace of Darius, Fiftli Century B. C.TH1-: ARTISTIC" DKSTIXV OF IRAN \?/in I>iiristan, whose l)ronzes appear to have embodied both tendenciessimultaneous!}', will probably supplement our knowledge.) The artof Elam which has come down to us is hardly distinguishable in itsstyle from the temporary arts. And that of the Medean Empire,what do we know? In the Achaemenid art (559-331 r.. c.) wefind a remarkable flowering of the "static" tendency. The admira-ble stone reliefs at Persepolis or the enamelled brick reliefs of Susa(page 156) provide frll proof of this: well-defined silhouettes, regu-lar and processional rhythms, a conscious and smooth form. Yet weknow that during this period there was definite artistic contact be-tween Iran and the northeast of Nomadic Asia: the famous OxusTreasure bears witness to this. And what precisely do we knowof the times of the Parthians (248 r.. c.-a. d. 226), that Orientaldynasty which was so Hellenized ?' \'ery little. Yet the humble"grafi-'itti" discovered on the walls of the houses at Dura-Europosreveal an art of popular character in which the bizarre cannot be ex-plained away merely as technical flaws. In Sasanian art ( 226-641.\. D.) the established heritage of "stability" was continued. Theimpetuosity which characterizes Sasanian representations (bas-reliefs of the grottoes at Taq-i-Bustan, for example, showing theroyal hunt and the masses of animals in flight) is related funda-mentally to its Mesopotamian models. And yet among the Sasanianmetal treasures which have survived, we sometimes sense the essenceof another spirit, a spirit "mobile" and continuous (page 159).\\^ith the coming of Islam the equilibrium between the two ten-dencies became firmer and more complete. It is curious to note herethe well-known fact that from the first Abbasid period (ninth cen-tury) and following through the two great successive waves of in-vasion—the Seljuq and the Mongol—it was Central Asia, this stillmysterious region, with which the Scytho-Siberian culture musthave had direct contact, which provided a great source of life forIran, paralleling the Oeek, Hindu, Egyptian, Chinese, and otherinfluences.In all the artistic creations of Islamic Iran there was an eft'ort toattain a perfect fusion of these two psychological tendencies. Thiseft'ort at fusion is, basically, the whole imagery of Persia and herscience of ornamentation: the personages, the animals, the plants,and the inanimate things, all lead a strange life there; sometimesthey are free of all geometric stylization (stability) and sometimes158 THE OPEN COURTthey incorporate themselves in "mobihty" ; not, however, losing theirdistinctive outlines, yet, at the same time, within those outlines, theyare deformed. Stone, stucco, faience, wood, ivory all are equallyprecious and suitable for the Iranian artist, who elaborates instinc-tively this formula of the visual synthesis.But it is in Iranian paintings (miniatures) that this is perhaps bestrevealed. Two things stand out clearly in the very first approach tothis art, especially of the most opulent period, the fifteenth and six-teenth centuries (the Timurid, and particularly the beginning of theSafavid periods). One is the precision with which the shapes aresilhouetted and above all, their coloring; the second, and dominant,is the strange conception of space and perspective. This later can-not be the effect of technical ignorance. Intellectual curiosity andthe advancement of mathematical sciences in Iran, the constant con-tact with the art of other countries, especially of Western Europeand of ,China, whose pictorial canons were directly opposed to theseof Iran, make such a supposition inacceptable. The construction ofperspective in Iranian painting is determined. We know what itis in principle : a slipping of one perfectly flat surface into another,one behind or above the other, creating thereby a rich and highlydecorative imagery, a fanciful depiction of the feudal life of thosetimes : the floors of the royal halls, the palace gardens or the fieldsare represented vertically, on the first plane of the panel, and thenimmediately the eye passes on to succeeding planes, which followeach other vertically or at opposite angles with their princely ban-quets, hunting, battle, or love scenes. Two methods, sometimes verysimple and sometimes more complex in their construction, seem todominate all other. According to the first method, most often recti-linear scheme, a scene or, rather, part of a scene is continued in partsof other scenes, which mutually complete each other by an apparentjuxtaposition (stable) but actually because they follow a consciousrhythm of intertwined surfaces, lines, and colors. An active, "mo-bile" perspective is thus created, a perspective which is not given tous statically at first (as in the perspective created by the Italian Ren-aissance) but which we, the spectators, must reconstruct for our-selves by our own participation, by our visual participation ( page160). And in this lies the distinction and contribution of Iranian cre-ation. The second method, cyclic or sw^irling, is no less intense. TwoTHE ARTISTIC DESTIXV OF IRAX 159Coiirfcsv of America}! Institute for Persian Art and Arehacologx.SILVER PLATE—SASAXIAXcenters are given: for example, a circular or square basin is posedvertically at the foot of the panel, and a richly ornamented canopy isset obliquely, in the i;pper part, and all around there is a circlingdance of objects and personages so arranged that the two spheres ofaction thus created are fused and by their persuasive poetry inducethe eye to create a mobile prrspective ( for example, the beautifulscene of the presentation of the portrait of Khosru to Shirin, in thefamous manuscript of the Shah Tahmasp period, painted between1539 and 1543. illustrating the poems of Xizami which is in theBritish ?\Iuseum).L 1:1^1^ z rCoui'tcsy of Amcncan Institute for Persian .Irt and Arcliacflloiiy.MINIATURE PAINTING FROM SA'DI'S BUSTANFifteenth Century. Mosque Scenes.THE ARTISTIC DESTINY OF IRAN 161Often it is not the objects themselves but the patches of colorwhich provoke this fruitful effort of the eye: for example, in thesame manuscript, on the page showing the mad lover, Ma j nun,brought in chains by a beggar woman to Laila's tent, the intenseblue of the sky above and the stark white of the tents, on the firstplane, by making the spectator participate, succeed perfectly in help-ing him to dominate the three-dimensional space. The distance ofthe sky and the proximity of the tents mutually complement eachother and thereby transform the representation to dimensions evenmore persuasive and more concrete than words could express.But all this, considered from this angle and transferred to a dif-ferent field—painting and its laws—what is it but this same bizarremobility which in Scytho-Siberian art created from the fusion ofanimals and their complementary parts such unexpected and newimages ?Only, and this is the synthesis of Iran, by introducing at the sametime the sense of "stability" (seriated forms, their outlines separatedone from the other, precision, clarity of line and of segments ofpure colors), Iran succeeded in removing the too violent quality ofthe barbarian vision and introducing that aesthetic element whichwe call grace.The art of Iran in subsequent centuries underwent a gradual,and what seems today to be a final, decadence; it no longer created,but merely repeated unintelligently. But having once been so uni-versal and so new, hence inexhaustible by virtue of its syntheticform, is it possible that this art will not be reborn ? Iran gave birthwithout realizing it to a unique aesthetic form ; it remains for Iranto find it again, but in full consciousness of its worth. Such a revivalcould have universal repercussions. It is sufficient to think whatsuch a renaissance, which would truly continue its great past, couldgive anew to the artistic searchings of the modern West, searchingswhich are at the same time so akin to the Iranian past : the art ofa \'an Gogh, for example, or that, so entirely opposite, of a Picasso.The economic and political decline of Iran in the eighteenth andnineteenth centuries, due more to the internal contradictions andchaos of a decaying system, than to the violence of wars, carriedalong with it impoverishment of thought and of art. A completerehabilitation of the material life of the Iranian people will surelybring about a renaissance of its creative consciousness.

The Artistic Destiny of Iran.

http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4600&context=ocj

The Artistic Destiny of Iran.

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