PublicationNotes #14

The study of Iranian art history — research in this field in the modern sense — seems to have begun in the Qajar period (1794–1925). Some historians of this period were acquainted with the development of historiography in the modern era and tried to apply new historiographical methods, developed in the West, to the historiography of Iran. During the Qajar era, the historiography of Iranian art had not yet acquired the status of an independent field, but we can trace a certain historical awareness of art in the writings of the historians of the time. Professional historians who were acquainted with European texts on art history, such as Mohammad Hasan Khan Etemad al Saltaneh ((1843–1896), became interested in describing artworks of the past and particularly showed a tendency toward an archaeological approach in their texts.¹ Yet there is no distinction between Iranian art history and that of other cultures or civilizations in their works.

It can be presumed that it was during the early Pahlavi era (1925–1979) that a distinct image of “Iranian art” was formed, leading to efforts to develop a theoretical understanding of the concept. This movement began with American historian Arthur Upham Pope (1881–1969). Evidently passionate about Iranian art, he traveled to Iran in 1925, only a few months before the coronation of Reza Shah Pahlavi and the foundation of the Pahlavi dynasty. During his trip, Pope delivered an important speech in which he presented an image of Persian art. His speech was attended by influential politicians and figures, including Reza Shah himself. This image was later developed by Pope in his more elaborated works and extended to his various activities related to the presentation of Persian art. Pope’s activities in the field of Iranian art history had a tremendous effect on research in art history and its teaching, as well as on the politics of art in Iran during the Pahlavi era.

Pope coined “Persian art” as a term and concept distinct from Islamic, Arabic, and Muhammadan art. Throughout his works, he associated Persian art with a unique essence, ascribing it a history of 2,500, 3,000, or even 6,000 years. According to Pope, the unifying element of Persian art is the Persian race, which has its own specific aesthetics and reflects this aesthetic taste in all its original and significant artistic creations. More specifically, Pope emphasized Persian art’s decorative aspect, already a familiar focus in Orientalist interpretations of Islamic art. This common, reductionist view was based on the formalist approaches of English art critics Roger Fry and Clive Bell. And yet the decorative aspect of Persian art was, for Pope, the unique characteristic that distinguished it from Naturalist Western art and, indeed, the art of the rest of the world, making it superior over the latter.²

Pope’s interpretation of Iranian art as “Persian” art coincided with the development and prominence of nationalist movements in the international political scene. Nationalism was also strongly welcomed in Iran and became the prominent ideology of the Pahlavi dynasty under Reza Shah. The intertwining of art theory and ideology prepared the necessary foundations for the increasing expansion of this theory in the political, intellectual, and cultural scenes of Iranian society. For decades, Pope’s theory explicitly or implicitly influenced Iranian researchers and intellectuals.

A typical example of such influence can be found in the texts and reflections of Mohammad Karim Pirnia (1920–1997), an influential theoretician of Iranian architecture. In the same vein, Pirnia believed in a unified essence, shared characteristics, and historical continuity across thousands of years of Iranian architecture. Leaving his own architectural studies unfinished at the University of Tehran, he distanced himself from the prevailing Western methods of practicing and teaching architecture. Instead, he introduced a new methodology for studying Iranian architecture, which became the primary academic methodology of architecture education in Iran for decades and remains quite prominent to this day.

The decades that followed this period were marked by two other influential movements, both highlighting essentialist dualities, such as Western versus Eastern and modern versus traditional, thus reinforcing the separation of Iranian art, and studies dedicated to it, from the art of the West. The first of these movements was inspired by French philosopher and Islamist Henry Corbin (1903–1978). Corbin was introduced to Iranian society in the 1950s and 1960s. During these decades, in comparison to Pope’s time, the influence of Western modernism had become much more widespread, bringing with it an intense desire to imitate the West and leave behind the old culture of Iranian society. Corbin was mesmerized by Islamic philosophy and the famous Iranian philosopher Shihāb ad-Dīn Sohrevardi (1154–1191). Yearning to discover the hidden layers of the Iranian philosopher’s thought, Corbin embarked on a research journey focused on Iranian spiritual culture. Like Pope, Corbin found a certain continuity within Iranian thought that connected ancient (pre-Islamic) Iran to post-Islamic Iran. According to Corbin, by adopting Shia Islam instead of Sunnism, Iranians absorbed Islam into their culture, creating their own version of it that Corbin called “Iranian Islam.” Under the influence of Heideggerian philosophy, Corbin diagnosed a crisis at the heart of Western modernity. He believed to have found an “alchemy” in Iranian thought and philosophy that could help the West cure its spiritual crisis. The majority of his works about Iran, including his research on Iranian art, seek the deep spiritual meaning of Iranian art and place Iranian art in contrast to the mundane attitude and materialistic approach of Western art. Relying on one of the fundamental notions of Sohrevardi’s philosophy, Corbin claims that this spirituality in Iranian art emerges from the representation of the “imaginal world” within it: a world that is beyond time, space, and history, neither purely material nor purely spiritual, and hence, by virtue of its in-between situation, capable of being represented in art. According to Corbin, Iranian art, religion, science, and philosophy — both in the pre-Islamic period and throughout the post-Islamic period — represented and manifested this world. Corbin’s notions provided Pope’s art theory with a strong philosophical foundation, provided underdeveloped Iran with a kind of supremacy over the West, and had the capacity to incorporate Islamic — and especially Shi’ite — ideas and beliefs. Some Iranian intellectuals were attracted to Corbin’s ideas, as they found in him a knowledgeable, wise man who could see the heart and essence of Iranian culture and civilization, showing “Westoxified” Iranian society the importance of its essential values, never to be exchanged for earthly, materialist Western ones.³

Shortly after Corbin’s activities commenced in Iran, a prominent Iranian scholar from an influential family close to the court, freshly returned from his studies in the West, emerged in the intellectual milieu of Iran: Seyyed Hossein Nasr (b. 1933). In the West, Nasr had studied the traditionalists who identified themselves as enemies of Western modernity, believing in the necessity of a return to traditional cultural values. Nasr identified with them and became a member of the movement. He deeply believed in the spiritual values of Islam and tried to introduce and present Islamic cultural values to the Iranian intelligentsia of his time, who had an unwelcoming attitude toward religion. More precisely, Nasr endeavored to uncover the hidden spiritual aspects of traditional Iranian art, science, and philosophy. Nasr and Corbin had a great deal in common in terms of their ideas and intellectual approach, and Nasr’s status in the Iranian political sphere helped them both become extremely influential figures in the Iranian art scene of the 1970s. During this decade, Iranian politics was predominated by a nationalist ideology, which tried both to distinguish between Iran and the West and to contextualize and integrate Islamic Iranian culture within the ancient monarchical history.⁴

All the above-mentioned movements had an ahistorical approach in their interpretation of, and reflections on, the history of Iranian art, highlighting the fundamental contrast or opposition between Iranian and Western art. Even though these movements were against the Orientalist approach on the face of it, in fact they were themselves the other side of the Orientalist coin, which viewed non-Western cultures as mysterious, other, irrational, and unhistorical. However, despite their influential status, these theoretical movements had little effect on the art academies and were not taught in the art history curriculum. Before the 1979 Revolution, art history was a subfield of archaeology in university programs, hence the predominance of an archaeological approach in studying and teaching art history. However, with the 1979 Revolution, the Islamist and nationalist approaches joined forces and were completely absorbed in one another, forming a single, mixed approach and becoming deeply interwoven with the fabric of the prominent ideology thanks to their anti-Western fundamentals. As a result, this new, mixed approach was integrated into the official curriculum of art history in Iran, and seminar courses with titles such as “The Wisdom of Islamic Art,” “The Aesthetics of Islamic Art,” “Art and Beauty in the East,” and “Art According to Traditionalists” were included in university programs, reinforcing a spiritual, ahistorical approach toward Iranian art studies. However, we should not forget that some scholars took more historical, attenuated points of view, and also Marxist approaches, both before and after the revolution. Art historians such as Ruyin Pakbaz, who took the latter approach, were mostly marginalized and never at the center of political attention. In summary, we can conclude that the dominant mode during a whole century of research and reflection on Iranian art history was a de-historicizing of Iranian art, pushing it toward intense spiritualism and philosophy that resonated with and reinforced the ruling ideology.

In spite of all this, for more than a decade, the historiography of Iranian art has been going through considerable change. As political Islam is losing its dominance and influence in Iranian society, the above-mentioned Islamist, fundamentalist, and anti-Western approaches toward Iranian art and its history are being increasingly rejected. Extended connections between the new generations of researchers in international Islamic and Iranian art studies have devalued the previous conceptions of Iranian art and aesthetics.

On the one hand, the younger generations do not think anymore in terms of dichotomies such as West/East and traditional/modern, and such dichotomies no longer form their worldview. Iranian society in general does not welcome such nostalgic readings of the past. On the other hand, in Western countries, the social sciences and humanities fields have gone through fundamental methodological transformations since the 1970s. These changes have had deep and far-reaching influence on the study of non-Western cultures. A neat separation between Western and non-Western cultures is no longer acceptable. Consequently, historians allow themselves to use methodologies of Western art and cultural studies in the study of other cultures.

The new generations of Iranian researchers form their thoughts and reflections in the framework of these new approaches to Iranian art studies. Such approaches are historiographical: instead of presupposing a totally religious or mystical origin for Iranian art, political, economic, and social factors are all seen to play crucial roles.

Art history is not yet an independent field of study at Iranian universities, which are still largely dominated by essentialist and traditionalist approaches and methodologies. Consequently, the systematic study of art history is undertaken mostly outside academic frameworks and through independent educational platforms and institutions. These recent movements and research groups benefit from the extensive possibilities offered to them by social media and various virtual platforms to present and discuss their research. They are seeking a new picture of Iranian art history, one that does not emerge from an ahistorical and reductionist narrative. They seek to present Iranian art history as embedded in cultural and material relations with all its diversities.

These young research and educational groups endeavor to go beyond Islamist or nationalist/Pan-Iranian ideologies, seeking a conception of Iranian art according to, and at the level of, international academic approaches. Yet they seem to be fully aware of the fact that politics and power are interwoven with science and that each culture has its own specific values and perspectives, which may not be fully grasped from an external viewpoint.

Translated by Golnar Narimani