Ancient Persia was a vast geographical area
encompassing most of what is today Iraq, Iran,
Afghanistan, and parts of Central Asia. It had
been
home to three great empires – Achaemenid,
Parthian
and Sasanian – reaching as far back as 550 BC.
Persia became Islamic in the eighth century
following its conquest by Arab armies. For a time
it
was incorporated into the Baghdad-based Arab
Abbasid Empire, the Turkish Seljuk Empire, and
the
Mongol Ilkhanid Empire.
It is out of this cosmopolitan, multi-cultural
environment with its Persian, Arab and Turkish
inhabitants that some of the most extraordinary
Islamic ceramics of all time were created.
The most immediate and enduring impact Islam
had
on the arts of Persia – and of all the lands in
which
the religion predominated – was the introduction
of
beautiful writing as a design element.
The Arabic language, and by extension its
alphabet,
was highly revered because of its identification
with
the Quran, the Muslim holy book. In addition, the
very nature of Arabic letters allows it to be both
easily applied to a variety of shapes, and to be
worked into nearly abstract designs by talented
artists.
Initially written exclusively in Arabic, inscriptions
on
ceramics were later written in Persian using the
Arabic alphabet. They ranged from the name of
the
artist, to blessings bestowed on the owner of the
piece (undoubtedly the patron who
commissioned
its creation), to aphorisms such as “Patience is
the
key to comfort.” Verses from the Quran are
conspicuously absent.
Interestingly, many of the inscriptions are illegible.
Perhaps the sayings were so familiar to people
that
they only needed to be alluded to with “loose”
writing. Or perhaps the artist was only interested
in
communicating writing’s purely aesthetic quality,
rather than its ability to convey meaning.
- (JB.1212)
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