Authors
Abstract
The Persian art has experienced multiple characteristics during its historical course of development. A prominent characteristic of the Iranian art is continuity and gradual development over time as a result of which different arts develop and find their zeniths over time. Earthenware has long been an excuse for implementation of decorative painting as a significant manifestation of the Iranian art. An attempt has been made in this study to examine the visual features and characteristics of paintings in terms of combination in the art of pottery in the pre-historic Iran relying upon the earthenware of Hesar civilization which is one of the oldest Persian civilizations in order to track the Iranian cultural background. Hesar civilization, lying in the easternmost part of the central of Iran, reflects the cultural remnants of the chalcolithic and bronze age. This civilization encompasses three cultural periods each of which are divided into shorter periods (or layers) which are the subsets of the established, long-term periods. The first period –the oldest one- has been divided into "A" , "B", and "C" layers; the second period has been divided into two layers, to wit. "A" and "B"; and the third period has been divided into three layers, namely "A", "B", and "C". This study deals with the painted earthenware of this civilization. By painted containers, this writer means the containers on internal or external surface of which paintings have been dyed. In order to find about the changes made in visual features of the earthenware of Hesar civilization, the visual-analysis-based descriptive method has been employed. Thus, one hundred fourteen sample of painted containers from the triple periods of hill Hesar are assesses drawing upon fundamentals of visual arts on the basis of visual features and characteristics such as single or repeated painting, rhythm, line quality, painting continuity, full or empty spaces, box and combination, so that the final aim of this piece of research, studying the developments experienced by the visual characteristics of the paintings during the 2500-year-long period of Hesar civilization, will be achieved. Upon completion of the analysis and summarization process, results suggested that the course of changes in painting characteristics moves very slowly on account of Hesar's earthenware combination, such that three characteristics have developed differently and four have developed similarly, more importantly, from among these features, only the features of rhythm has changed at all periods, and two features of line quality and the single or repeated painting have changed only in the third period when compared to the previous periods. Consequently, visual features of earthenware's paintings have less developed in terms of combination and been stable within a well- defined framework. This shape or pattern has been presented as single, detached, inside-box, and over-container paintings vertically. This stable pattern has revealed the stability quality of painting on Hesar pottery in mode of drawing painting on the earthenware during countless years, and the slow course of changes in the painting indicates continuity, sustainability, and gradual development of paintings at this civilization over time.
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