Quarterly Scientific-Research Goljaam

Love of beauty and perfection is an inherent characteristic of human beings. The principle of “need” complements the sense that brings artistic creation in him to a peak, resulting in the formation and permanence of culture. The “carpet” may not represent a pure form of art, but it there is no doubt that its artistic and visual qualities put it beyond a mere commercial commodity and elevate it to the position of a work of art that embodies taste, thought, beliefs and a special custom. It presents the intellectual and cultural potentials of a people in the form of esoteric motifs and symbolic forms. The elementary motifs and patterns that are especially found in rural carpets and small carpets usually embody a purer content from the point of view of symbolic concepts that deserve a thorough investigation.

The designs and motifs of Qashqa’i gelims betray in a sense their weavers’ creative minds, high intelligence, unwavering efforts, great ability, graceful spirit, and deep thought. Understanding the meanings of these motifs and designs will help us become more familiar with the religious beliefs of the Qashqa’i people, the true meaning of their lives, their myths, traditions and rituals. It will also help us recognize the factors that have led to the appearance or disappearance of various motifs throughout the history of the tribe. The general factors that have led to the appearance of motifs in Qashqa’i flatwoven rugs have been mentioned as follows:
A) Geographical factors and the natural environment
B) The history, culture, and art of Iranian nomadic tribes
C) The organization of the tribe
D) The literacy, amount of knowledge, income and status of living of the people The most important conclusions of the study concern the categorization of Qashqa’i gelims, the most prevalent designs, motifs and sizes of the Qashqa’i gelims, designs that have undergone change or have been forgotten and the use of various colors in these rugs.

The compilation of subject matter and data used in this article are extracted from library and recorded materials based on historical and pictorial sources to show changes in Kelardasht carpet within the past 100 years. Furthermore interviewing with masters in museums and bazaar was also used in accomplishing this article, and at the end data and pictures were compared to study the design and patterns of Kelardasht carpet in order to classify the patterns and motifs of these subjective and mental-woven carpets. Study of variations of patterns, motifs and colors in Kelardasht carpet shows that most of the patterns have been forgotten in the course of time and are not used any more. Then because this carpet is not a commercial one, difficult access to the area and entering poor patterns, this carpet was undermined or even defeated. It seems that the usage of old and original colors, original patterns and motifs and introducing genuineness and employed concepts in this kind of carpet to young people and buyers are important factors for the revival of Kelardasht carpets.

The hunting & animal patterns is indeed one of the most important & effective motifs which can be seen in Persian Art since ancient times. For a long period of time, these motifs (which include religious & old mythological concepts, and tell about the geographical & natural human being environment, as well as his own desires, his domineeringness, and struggle for survival), have been designed & accomplished in various subjects and to their perfections by man of those ages in different arts. The importance of the hunting & animal motifs has caused these particular motifs to be repeated at any age. Meanwhile these repeated patterns have kept their own concepts & specifications regarding the variety of animals and compositions and at the same time have been rendered in innovative styles. This paper is trying to deal with one of the hunting & animals patterns in Persian Art namely: “Catch & Take” pattern. It also introduces some samples from the ancient ages till Safavid era, and finally the manifestation of these patterns from viewpoint of verity of animals & compositions have been studied in some carpets of Safavid era.

The majority of the Shasavan tribe lives in northwest Iran near the city of Ardabil and Dasht-e Moghan. Small groups of Shahsavan, however, moved to central Iran near Saveh, Garmsar, and Varamin. In Farsi (official language of Iran) Shahsavan means "those who love the Shah (king)"; Most of their weavings consist of practical pieces such as saddle bags, traveling bags and animal trappings. Their textiles frequently use the Soumak and Kilim weaves. It is likely that traditionally each clan of the Shahsavan confederation had its own designs and carpet presents its idea — the idea of a reality that simultaneously unfolds the Turkish-speaking Shahsavan people weave bags in the sumak technique. A series of large diamond latch hook medallions repeats down the field, each enclosed in a compartment of different color. Shahsavan weavings have a strongly tribal flavor with highly abstract, geometrical designs and rich colors. They are sometimes distinguished by certain shades of lavender or deep pink and salmon tones, in conjunction with soft blues. Shahsavan carpets are very similar to Caucasian carpets. The Shahsevan tribes were originally transported and resettled in the Northwest from Central Asia by the Persian kings in the seventeenth century. This helps to explain the ties between these rugs and those of the Turkmans and other Central Asian tribes. This paper discusses the ancient roots of tribal weaving, the interrelatedness of common designs and tribal motifs in Shahsavan and Caucasusian Kilims. Larger Shahsavan rugs are uncommon, and often they are mistaken for rugs from the nearby Caucasus region.

Books and topics of traditional arts (especially hand-made carpet) have not been compiled based on scientific methods. For years, the literature of carpet design and motif is strangely non-structural and full of deficiencies; even the major writers of the field follow in others’ footsteps. This article tries to prepare the ground for a different viewpoint: a better understanding and classification of “design” and “motif” in Iranian carpets requires solid and reliable bases. Review of those books which have mentioned designs and motifs and have introduced a classification for them reveals that the definitions are heterogenic, references and structures are unknown and there are many sharp and tremendous differences among them, as if there is no cognitive and conceptual objective to be drawn from such classifications. None of such categories can be regarded as scientific, therefore design and motif shall be defined using comprehensive methods but not merely descriptive ones. Ultimately this paper proposes that “design” can be considered as the architecture and overall image of those motifs included in a text, while “motif” can be regarded as the element which portrays the design by means of its capabilities.

In the field of Iranian hand-woven rugs, there are different regions with varied histories some of which are still unknown or neglected. Among these are the Shariat-madar Hur rugs which belong to the ancient region of "Eij" and not long ago, were considered as unique masterpieces of carpet-weaving in Fars province. Definitely, one of the essential investigations in the field of hand-woven rugs is to uncover these cultural treasures from the mysteries of time. The present study aims at introducing this unknown identity with all of its features including designs and concepts hidden in its symbolic ornaments. By using field and library research methods, this paper tries to bring the potentials of the inventive and anonymous weavers of this particular type of rugs to the attention of the researchers and admirers of Iranian rugs. The revealed facts in this study can contribute to an increase in the required information in researching about and planning Iranian carpets. Furthermore, this original study prevents the information regarding this rug from disappearing and contributes to the revival of this type of rug in the region of Eij and Estahban.

The motif of tree is one of the most important and original motifs of decoration and mysticism in human’s art. Different kinds of plants and trees that may be considered as the symbol of “the prayer human” can be found in many historical works in Iran and other parts of the world; each expressing a special meaning and sometimes multiple meanings. “Weeping willow” is one of these motifs that can be found in art works and miniatures of our country, especially in hand-knitted carpets of some areas. Accordingly, the Chaharmahal & Bakhtiaris’ carpets which are classified among tribal and rural categories present such motif especially in carpets with “Kheshti Design”. In this paper the different kinds of such motif have been introduced and their formal and semantic aspects have been studied in Kheshti carpets of different areas of Caharmahal & Bakhtiaris Province.

The textile of the Bakhtiarian's nomadic have many changes during of periods .This alterations will have continued, but some of that ,have a collection of designs that come from the mind of Bakhtiarian woman ,who teach them from her deceased, these study tried to collect the motifs that have many unknown meanings. The aim of this research is to introduce these motifs and try to field study. But the main purpose of this study is to reviving the traditional Bakhtiarian motifs and avoid of its separating and abandoning and also the use of these motifs in new art works and the life of people

It is not an exaggeration to say that Iran’s cultural, artistic and even national identity is to some extent related and tied with carpet. The history of carpet weaving is an honorable and glorious one. And today’s artists in this field would not be successful without relying on this rich and fruitful past and using their own creativity. Therefore, the scholars of this field have to closely examine and investigate patterns and motifs of carpets and introduce their findings to the carpet society. This way, they can recall us of a great identity which sometimes is being concealed in the shadow of innovations. Here the authors have tried to investigate an important part of the history of this art in the Qajar era and to introduce the especial characteristics of patterns and motifs in Carpet Museum of Iran. The method of this research is descriptive and analytical one and the data is collected by library-based and field study methods. Appearance and extension of pictorial patterns, extension of “Bandie Golfarang”, “Bandie Boteh” patterns, extension of "rose" ," Boteh" and "Mahi dar Ham" motifs, naturalism and simple and unassuming style are among the characteristics of Qajar carpets. 

Iran’s carpet owes its basic part of artistic aspect to its own patterns and motifs. The transference of these patterns on woven carpets is done in different methods including “plan handkerchiefs”. Plans handkerchief acts as a mediator between the mind of the designer artist and the hands of the weaver artist. These patterns which are placed on cloths, besides their innate role as models for carpet weaving, increase the weavers’ designing and imaginative faculty and by giving variety to carpet productions of the region, play an important role in preservation and continuance of motifs as worthwhile heritage. The extension of new checkered plans has reduced the appearance of plan-handkerchiefs in Heris carpet weaving culture, and it has intensely reduced the variation of carpets’ patterns and motifs. 

Arab Jinni rugs, illustrate special attitude of their creators who made exceptional and mysterious hand-made weavings. In 1993, Dr. Parham ascertained the name of this tribe as well as their weavings to Persian carpet literature for the first time. Despite unfamiliarity of this tribe in Iran's literature and historical documents, it is mentioned in detail in the lineage books of Arab and Quran commentaries. Apparently in the ethnic and ideological beliefs of this tribe, believe in jinni and tendency to their mysteries is one of the factors that affect their motifs and designs. Recognition of Arab-Jinni tribes and their beliefs, plausible ancestral and ideological relation of this mysterious and unknown tribe with them, totemic tendencies of creators of such rugs, the influence of cultural reconciliation of three important western Asia, Mesopotamia, and Persia-India civilizations on the formation of their motifs are among the most important outcomes of this research.

In this paper, the specimens woven by the same weaver with identical materials but with four different types of knots, i.e., symmetrical, asymmetrical, jufti and U knots, which their details are given in a previous paper by these authors, are used. The effect of these knots on such physical properties as width of the weave, length of the motifs, length of yarn in a knot and the carpet weight are measured. The woven samples are produced in two different methods. Resulrs show that the width of jufti and U knot samples were reduced after cutting off the loom, while the change in the width of the other two is little. The change in the length of motifs depends on the change in the carpet length, i.e., in samples with change in carpet length, the motifs length change as well and in cases that there are little change or no change in the carpet length, accordingly no change or little change is observed in the motifs. In the meantime, by subjective investigation of shapes of motifs in the four different knots, the change in their details and the sharpness of the lines and curves in them are studied. The results of computation of the ratio of the wool yarn to cotton yarn demonstrates that in symmetric and asymmetric samples more than two third of the carpet weight is built up by wool yarns, so that it is predicted that they have better mechanical function compared with other knots. Jufti sample has the lowest ratio of wool to cotton yarn, so it would show the worst mechanical performance. 

The study of Sun and Mehr motifs and symbols, their continuity and transformation, related religions and myths in all Iranian pre-historic cultural fields and Islamic period especially in the traditional carpet art is an inevitable necessity in order to get more acquainted with the content of the work. With the change of moon-worshipping custom to Sun-worshipping one, the elements and motifs of the past religion were realized in the elements of the new religion and left many motifs in various arts and particularly in the carpet of different regions of Iran, such as Fars area. Mithraism is the most important related religion with the sun that becomes a global religion and other related symbols with this religion are being illustrated in various Iranian fields, especially Iranian rural and tribal carpet-weaving until today. In this article, the semantic and visual motifs of Sun and Mehr in the Persian carpets and handcrafts have been analyzed by the comparative-analytical as well as library method. By studying various pictures from handcrafts with the required content in various urban, rural and tribal styles, all related motifs were examined in a three-fold categorization. Broad geographical understanding of motifs is among the findings of this research. 

 Bird motif has always had an important place in Iranian artworks. Various patterns of birds have been presented in all types of Persian art like carpets. Bird motifs, both in abstract and naturalistic forms, can be found in Iranian carpet design. This paper, after studying the role of bird motif in Iran's art and literature, introduced the formal and conceptual aspects of the motif in "Kheshti" design pattern. For this purpose, some images of Kheshti carpets of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari have been illustrated. This is a descriptive research and data collection has been accomplished using library-based studies, written literature and images

 Logo designing is one of basic and scientific topics of graphics which interconnects to other parts of graphics by its own intrinsic characteristics. Instant and visual relationship of these logos with addressees conveys their spiritual and concise interior behind attractive exterior. Mysteries hidden in Persian carpet make it last and eloquently depict the cultures, traditions, cheers and tribulations of people who created it. Iranian hand-weavings and designs applied to them are various and ponderable from region to region and add to rich, mysterious and ancient art of this land; especially designs applied to Northern Khorasan weavings, which are rich. It is obvious that these characteristics provide graphic designer with the formation of a meaningful connection in the form of a favored art, like a multi-directed medium, by using symbolic motifs. The above research is of applied one, in which the possibility of logo designing inspired by carpet designs, regarding spiritual and intrinsic characteristics of Northern Khorasan weavings, is studied.

One of the prosperous periods of Persian commercial carpet industry is the Safavid era especially the 10th and 11th centuries (A.H.). Governments’ attention to arts and artists and expanding the facilities on the one hand, and willingness of other artists such as illumination artists and Persian painters’ to beautiful designs for carpets, along with the progress of the dyeing industry, provided carpet weaving with a special place in the field of art and industry. The main question of the present study is: Who were the carpet designers at different geographical locations and in different times for various woven products? The main hypothesis in this paper is that in Safavid era, some of carpets were designed by famous Persian paintings artists. For this purpose, a comparative method has been used for comparing two survived carpet samples with the paintings of that era. It can be seen that the most of the arts, including traditional arts and architecture, were closely related at that era which indicate the existence of a unified artistic management in the cultural system of that period, and such responsibility was undertaken by the prominent painters and architects. The comparison of motifs of paintings and carpet may indicate that some of the carpets have been designed by some great painters such as Kamal al-Din Behzad and Aghamirak Isfahani and Soltan Mohammad Iraqi, etc and there are some valuable carpets woven directly under the supervision of these masters. On the other hand, some carpet designers were trained who followed their masters and this indirectly influenced the development of carpet motifs, so that the carpet designers were mostly inspired by these masters in manufacturing workshops.

Carpet is one of the oldest and most ancient traditional arts that in addition to satisfying practical needs, reflects beliefs, myths and other conceptions. These concepts are manifested in the context of rugs, with colorful and beautiful motifs informed by inspiration. In this paper, in addition to identification of animal motifs in the rural rugs of Hamadan, these motifs have been classified as quadrupeds, birds, and aquatic animals. Moreover, ritual - mythical roots of such motifs have been studied. Among animal motifs, some birds (falcon and peacock), some aquatic animals (fish and turtle and crab) and livestock (goat), all have the concept of blessing and fertility.

 The Safavid Era is considered as the golden age of Iranian carpet history, which in addition to beauty of pattern, motif and color, has yielded worthwhile concepts on its carpets. The lion motif is one of those motifs on carpets of Safavid Era which have been depicted as both a prey and a hunter. Repetition of, and emphasis on this motif, which contains diverse concepts and senses in Iranian and Islamic cultures as well as gnostic viewpoints, raise this question that what concepts are manifested by the motif of lion. Mowlana regards the lion as the symbol of God, God's names and traits, the symbol of fate, people of virtue and saints as well as symbol of Mohammad Prophet, Hazrat Ali, wisdom, thinking and even sensuality. However, in his view, the concept of the lion is further interpreted to be human and perfect human rather than other symbols. A meaningful relationship, in the visual and conceptual studies, can be seen among lion motif in the view of Mowlana and on Safavid carpets. In more than 10 samples of the carpets, where the lion motifs studied in different situation and diverse positions, it was observed and implied that the lion, after unwieldy and difficult struggle, reaches to the center of the universe, i.e. the medallion of the carpet, and finally attain human-like lion degree. This concept also is reflected in the ideas of Mowlana. This study has been performed using library method, as well as the case study of carpets of Safavid using content analysis method and by comparison of samples.

Culturalattitudesduringdifferentperiodsare associated withmythologicalbeliefs ofthe people, however,regarding culturaldivision, each period contain a particularconcept. Hand-woven motifsand mythsinproportion to the categoriesof motifs in Persiancarpet are dividedinto several types, mostimportantly mythicfigureas plant and animalmotifs(Daryaei, 2003, 83). It cannot be saidthat such motifs oncarpetsare exactly equal to the interpretation ofthe concepts thattoday'sgreatestmythologists,sociologistsand historianspropose. Behind these motifs, there lies a written language of people who have experienced the powerto transfersuchideasin therealmofcolor andwool.One of themost importantartisticvaluesin Persian rugsis their motifs, and howwe can identifythemythic valuesof such motifs?GholtoughVillageinZanjan Province is one of the importantcarpet-weaving areas in Iran. Carpetart-industryhas prevailedin the areafor a longtime andhas survived until today,soits designs and motifscanberooted in thepastperiods.Carpetsof Gholtoughvillageasa manifestation ofthe richart and cultureof this landhave beenabandoned for years.Thus, in order torevivethis art, a closer look atthefactorsaffectingitsplasticity, its originaldrawingsanddesigns and its maincharacteristicsis necessary, so that its symbolicandmythicalconceptscan be identified, and imagination and of puredreamsofits weavercan be describedand understood.The aimisto identify themythic valuesof motifs in Gholtoughcarpetand to find needed information.This studyis historical, descriptiveandanalyticalin terms of method. Accordingly, firsta brief historyof Gholtoughvillagewill be provided and technical characteristicsandappearance ofthe carpets in the areaare studied.Finally, aestheticfactorsare describedwhich are the cultural and intellectualgrounds for mythologicalmotifson the carpet.Sample size for motifs of Gholtoughcarpethas been 9samples.