Quarterly Scientific-Research Goljaam

 The extensive developments of Iranian arts in Qajar era eventually led to pictorial representation in almost all forms of art. Carpet weaving was no exception too and during this era the so-called pictorial carpets emerged. Although the images of these carpets mostly appeared in the central field, the borders of the carpets also underwent drastic developments. The findings of this essay indicate that despite weakening of the borders, they have never been removed and were always as an indispensible part of such carpets. In some of the carpets, one can see that the proportions of borders are not right but their provenance is identifiable. The methodology of this research is descriptive-analytical one. The statistical population consists of 79 pictorial carpets of Qajar era and the data have been collected using both desk and field studies.

In the late of the Qajar era, a Persianized Iranian royal family of Azerbaijani Turkic origin which ruled Persia from 1785 to 1925, the Isfahan carpet design was revived by some of the artists such as Mirza Aqa Emami and Mohammad Hossein Mosavver Al-Molki. One of the leading artists in the late of the Qajar period and the early of the next period, Mohammad Hossein Mosavver Al-Molki, known as Haj Mossaver, was an innovator whether in painting or carpet design. However, the traditions of the Safavid painting and design are dominant in his works. He revived the hunting design which belonged to the previous periods specially Safavid era in the Isfahan carpet. In this paper, the Mosavver Al-Molki’s hunting designs is studied with a descriptive-analytical method and the paper’s data is collected through an observational and library-based research. The study revealed that his works were not a mere imitation. He changed the horizontal composition of the Safavid hunting carpets to the vertical composition. As a result, a high horizon was created in the hunting scene. Haj Mosavver had a realistic perspective in his designs and so, he solved the problem of the separation between the nature of the field and the elements of hunting scene in traditional hunting carpets via converting the vines and palmettos to the small bushes and shrubs. In fact, his work was a logical relationship between the contemporary carpet design and the Safavid’s.

In the domain of rural and nomadic carpet weaving of Fars Province, there are various common patterns and designs. One of these famous patterns is called Yeksar Nazem which, in the past, solely belonged to Qashqai and Kashkouli tribes but, at present, is popular in other areas of Fars Province as well. The main feature of this pattern is its general structure and elements which have been skeptically categorized by researchers in different contextual forms. This pattern has been studied by some researchers among Mehrabi carpets and Darghahi pattern which opens to a garden. The aim of this research is to study the main features of Yeksar Nazem pattern and to identify its main elements in Fars Province carpets so that its pattern of change from Qajar to the present period can be obtained. This study is descriptive-analytic which qualitatively analyzes the main elements of Yeksar Nazem carpets of Fars Province in two groups of old and new carpets.  The method of data collection is field and library study. 50 samples of Yeksar Nazem carpets were considered as the main data pool, out of which, and based on the available frequencies, 10 carpets were purposefully (non-randomly) selected as old carper samples and 10 carpets as new ones. The results indicate that the structural form of the pattern and the main features of Yeksar Nazem carpets have observed changes in the structure and the attitude towards the content of this pattern from Qajar era to the contemporary period. This pattern has recently appeared among new carpets with diversity in overall composition and simplicity in the form of elements. Its weaving place has also been extended from a particular geographical area to wider areas in Fars Province.