Reflection of religion in the folk arts of the second half of Qajar rule

Dissertation

Abstract

Religious art with centuries of history in Iran during the Qajar period gives way to religious art; This is not a big change, as it is always embodied in official and court art, which is embodied in folk art. The change of the social background of art is born from the burning spirit of the Qajar period. Qajar Iran was a different Iran compared to its predecessors. Full of people's desire to achieve freedom, equality, justice, etc. This passion penetrated under the skin of society, politics, economy, culture and art; So that the general public can seriously experience the firsts in any field. Therefore, folk art made its first serious appearance in the form of folk arts such as coffee house painting, back glass painting, bekaa motabreke painting, etc. The content of folk art is full of religious themes; Themes that originated from both religious enthusiasm and the symbolic spirit of struggle that emerges in the form of the drawing of saints such as Imam Hossein (AS) - the struggle against oppression. This thesis aims to investigate religion in folk arts according to the theory of reflection; According to the theory of reflection, arts are a mirror of their era and reflect it; This is evident in the folk arts of the Qajar period, which are closely related to the developments of their era - especially in the religious themes. This goal has been approached by studying the structural and thematic similarities of the works of different artists; In addition, by examining the lives of artists of the popular class and their relationship with their own class, the worldviews and attitudes of them and their followers have been obtained. The result of this research shows that folk artists are agents of the ideology of their class, who display it with the help of art.

Key words

Folk art, religion (Shia), theory of reflection, Qajar period, painting behind glass, painting of coffee houses, painting of blessed tombs.

Chapter 1: General research

1-1 Description of the topic and statement of the problem

Mind Restless man has been searching for an answer to what his presence is since the beginning of his life on earth. The first man looked at the world with weak steps and wandering thoughts from beyond his amazement, and on the way to self-knowledge, he faced the greatness of nature and his own inferiority. The sun, the moon, the earth and who were the source of his life, became holy in his eyes. So he was humbled by this greatness and chose it for worship. What remains of the rituals of this worship is now considered a work of art. Man's destiny continued with ritual concepts and its objective examples, i.e. art, and over many centuries this ritual attitude gave its place to different religions and the primary ritual expression became a religious expression.

Although art cannot be considered as a means of expressing the purposes and intentions of religion and religion, but its initial formation gave it such an insight. Art underwent many changes in the process of human development and human societies. Every civilization created art according to its culture. In societies such as western countries, this growth was accompanied by many ups and downs; Even concepts such as art for art appeared in it, which gave complete independence to art. But art in eastern societies stopped serving religion. The Muslim artist also found his own path and in this way was prevented from figurative representation; Because Islamic art seeks to present the truth and show the holiness of the realm and the symbolic and mysterious representation of the unseen world. In Islamic art, naturalism has no meaning and it is always avoided to completely resemble nature or the material world, and techniques that lead to the creation of natural resemblance and the material world are avoided. Beauty is a manifestation of divine attributes, not a relative matter created by the artist's mind. There is no individuality of the Muslim artist in the creation of the artwork; Therefore, Islamic art has thousands of magnificent works of art with unknown creators who traveled their path for centuries without objective representation of religious subjects. Iran, as a country that plays an important role in the birth and development of Islamic art, has faced the same process (art in auras of holiness and mystery that has no figurative expression). This ruled the artistic atmosphere of Iran for centuries. Another kind of experience of religious art in Iran needed to create a social platform; A platform where the rulers and people of the society allow the artist to represent objectively and iconographically in the field of religious art. The grounds for the emergence of such a platform in Iran were formed during the Safavid period; The era when Iran stepped into the field of international relations and became more familiar with their art of iconography through communication with Western countries. But the effect of this familiarity became visible in the Qajar period.The Qajar era is one of the most tense periods of Iran's social life, in which many changes took place. The most important of these phenomena is the impact of communication with western societies on politics, society, culture and art; Also, the presence of the mass of people in society and the weakening of the role of the court in the affairs of the state; A court that always supervised the dos and don'ts of art and created a court art that was separate from the context of the people. New trends in art were formed, including the representation of religious themes and the narrative representation of important events such as the Karbala incident, the Day of the Dead, and so on. which had no history in Iranian art. In fact, religious art was drawn to religious art and entered the forbidden territory of figurative representation. How to enter the religious art that has drawn the icons of the Prophet and Saints in dimensions as wide as the wall was not possible in Iranian art except entering a different social background. Iranians who for centuries avoided figurative drawings by relying on the concepts of religious art; Under the influence of the intellectual and political currents of the Qajar era, he changed his values ??and attitudes.

One of the most important reasons for this change is the active presence of people in the field of art. A presence that was so faint until now that it lacked importance. But in the Qajar period, it became so colorful that we can boldly admit; It was people and folk art that broke the taboos of religious art and led it to religious (Shia) art. In fact, three areas of painting behind the glass, painting of coffee houses and painting of blessed monuments, which have been the manifestation of folk art, broke the fence of figurative representation and iconography in dimensions and sizes beyond writing and painting. 

1-2 Introduction

Iranian art has long been a display of the sacred world and spiritual concepts, even in its courtly form, this art had features such as being far from realism, showing the atmosphere of necessity and necessity, etc.; In fact, Iranian art is inherently spiritual. For a long time - as old as the presence of Islam until the Qajar period - this matter was manifested in the field of religious art, and then with the arrival of the Qajar period, this importance appeared in the form of folk religious art.

The Qajar era created another Iran with profound social and political changes; Communication with Western countries that had an advanced civilization made Iranians rebellious, a rebellious rebellion that saw itself in the well of ignorance, tyranny and colonialism in front of all that progress, knowledge, prosperity, etc. Iranians in every stratum, according to their circumstances, wanted to get rid of this undesirable reality; Because the Qajar kings had proven that they did not pay attention to anything except their own comfort and enjoyment, so the Iranians started various campaigns. All the fields underwent changes, and among them, the emergence of the common stratum, as a stratum that no longer accepted the role of serfs, is very important. The layer that is considered as the bottom stone of the mill and was subjected to all kinds of damage and pressure. In order to get their civil rights, people started street struggles and attended sit-ins and religious places with the clergy. The passion resulting from this, along with economic pressures, poverty, famine, etc., made people protest more every day; Apart from the protest expression, they also turned to another expression, the artistic expression.

Folk art, which actually gained its sensational, serious and purposeful experience in the Qajar era, is full of the attitudes of the popular class; The people who ordered folk arts were oriented towards religious and national concepts, and the artists who arose from such a society, the people who did not see the school, with a spontaneous taste, started to create the beliefs of their class in a different way. The sacred area of ??Iranian art was broken. Official art was no longer a place for holy and religious art; But folk art brought it back in its own way. Although this re-creation was influenced by its predecessors and in some cases, leads to it and contains concepts such as avoiding dimensionality, ornamentation, etc.; But at the same time, it is an independent art that created a unique way of expression. At a time when Iran's official art denied itself in front of Western art, folk art started to preserve national and religious values, like its representative class. Artists painted by ordering people.