Diversity of Plant Motives in Wall-Paintings at the Time of the Zand in Shiraz

Karim Khan can be considered as the only authoritative king in the whole Zand era, thus the cultural and artistic foundations of this vary era is related to his government and him. Seemingly, he was uneducated; however, he was interested in art, literature, and science. Therefore, his court was the concourse of scientists, scholars, and artists. Moreover, he has supported so many architectural and urban projects, especially in Shiraz where is the capital of Zand era.
One of the most common ways of architectural ornaments in constructions of Zand era in Shiraz was wall painting. These paintings are remarkable in visual properties and some practical styles. Apparently studding the method of drawing and the diversity of decorative designs may be useful to recognize the paintings of this era. Apparently, vast part of the internal space of remarkable Zand buildings in Shiraz were decorated by paintings.  Since the whole space of the wall paintings of Zand era is covered by plant motives, the subject of this paper is limited to review and qualitative analysis. For this purpose, first the original works of wall paintings in Arg, Haft-tanan and Pars museum identified, then diversity of plant motives classified and reviewed under the topics of cartouche, ornament floral, bird and flower, arabesque and foliage motives.
It seems that analyzing design style and diversity of decorative motives in Zand wall painting can be effective in estimating of painting changes of this era. Generally decorative motives of wall paintings of Zand era consist of human paintings, plant designs, animal motives and geometric patterns. Since in plant designs the quantity and variety is remarkable, the subject of this research is based on the recognition of the diversity of plant designs that exist in wall paintings of Zand era in Shiraz.
The goal of this research is classifying these motives in addition to qualitative analysis of them, thus to achieve this goal the wall paintings available from the Zand in Arg Karim Khan, Haft-tanan and Pars museum is studied by detail. This paper is a descriptive analysis research based on field observations and literature review. In this research, for the first time, the plant motives that are used on wall paintings of Zand era is studied and classified by detail.
This study demonstrates that in Zand era’s wall paintings variety of plant motives are used, properly. Although architectural space in different rooms and buildings is almost the same, the motives that are located in these spaces from room to room is different. In these designs elegance of drawing is remarkable, thus this is comparable to the small decorative paintings in this very era. The use of regular and balanced paneling increased the quality of designing in these paintings. Also, inorder to drwing all cartouche, arabesque and foliage motives and most of the ornament floral paterrns, symmetry is observed. In addition, relevancy of patterns in planes of a room or porch is preserved, properly. This collection points indicates the decorative value of wall painting at the Time of the Zand, more than ever.