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Persian Tile Work

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The history of tile manufacturing and decorating goes back to the prehistoric period and has an important position among the various decorative arts in Iranian architecture. Iran has the most beautiful tile work in the world. Over the centuries, glazed bricks and tiles have been used to decorate palaces, mosques, monuments, mausoleums, official buildings, schools, and shops.

Persian Tile Work

The importance of tile work in Persian architecture arises from two important factors; first the need to weatherproof the simple clay bricks used in construction, and second, the need to ornament the buildings. Tiles were used to decorate monuments from early ages in Iran.

Persian Tile Work

Evidence of brick work, stucco carving and tile panels from the last 14 centuries have provided much evidence of creative and imaginative nature of Persian Artisans. They placed their art in the service of religious architecture. This religious inspiration found its highest expression in ornate inscriptions, which decorated so many works during these centuries. Mosaic patterns were the first step in the evolution of tile decoration. Imaginative and creative artisans put together mosaic patterns using bits of colored stone and brick and created patterns of triangles, semi-circles and circles in harmony with the structures they were placed on. These patterns later evolved into design of natural subjects, such as plants, trees, animals and human beings.

Persian Tile Work

The art of tile working blossomed in the Islamic period of Iran. It became the most important decorative feature of religious buildings. In Safavid era, artists used Naskh and Thulth scripts. Works of famous calligraphers, such as Alireza Abbasi, Mohammad Saleh Isfahani, Mohammad Reza Imami and Hossein Banna have been found. One of the famous mosques in Isfahan enjoying a rich variety of tile work is Khayyatha Mosque which researches has done lots of examination on it.

Persian Tile Work

Khatamkari

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Khatamkari literally means decorating objects’ surfaces with small pieces like tiles and it is one of the Persian arts wherein the surface of wooden or metallic articles is decorated with pieces of wood, bone and metal cut in a variety of shapes and designs.

Khatamkari

This art, to some extent, has existed in Iran from long ago. Inlaid articles in the Safavid era took on a special significance, as artists used this art on doors, windows, mirror frames, Qur’an boxes, pen and pen holders, lanterns and tombs.

Khatamkari

Also, in some royal buildings, doors and various items have been inlaid. The inlaid-ornamented rooms in Sa’dabad and Marble Palace in Tehran are among masterpieces of this art.

Khatamkari

Incorporating techniques from China and improving it with Persian know-how, this craft existed for more than 700 years and is still practiced in Shiraz and Isfahan.

How to do it

Gold, silver and etc. can be used for collector coins. These rods are first assembled into triangular beams with geometric patterns, and then these are assembled again and glued into bundles in a strict order to form a cylinder of about 70cm, whose edge shows the unity of the base of the final decoration.

Khatamkari

These cylinders are then sheared in shorter cylinders, then compressed and dried between two wooden plates, before undergoing a final cut that makes slices of about 1 mm in thickness. The latter are then ready to be plated and glued on the support object to be decorated before being lacquered. They can be preheated to soften them, if the object is curved, so that they can perfectly marry the curves. The decorated objects are: boxes, chess or backgammon, frames, or even musical instruments.

Khatamkari

The Khatam technique can also be applied to the famous Persian miniatures, thus creating true works of art.

Khatamkari

Persian Pottery

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Persian Pottery

Iranian pottery production presents a continuous history from the beginning of Iranian history until the present day. In Iran pottery manufacture has a long and brilliant history. Due to the special geographical position of the country, being at the crossroads of ancient civilizations and on important caravan routes, almost every part of Iran was, at times, involved in pottery making. Yet, recent excavations and archaeological research revealed that there were four major pottery-manufacturing areas in the Iranian plateau. These included the western part of the country, namely the area west of the Zagros Mountains (Lorestan), and the area south of the Caspian Sea (Gilan and Mazandaran provinces).

Persian Pottery

One of the earliest known and excavated prehistoric sites that produced pottery is Ganj Darreh Tappeh in the Kermanshah region. Another great discovery was made south of the Caspian Sea in a cave, in the so-called Kamarband, (Belt cave) near present day Behshahr.

With the invention and the introduction of the potter’s wheel, it became possible to produce better quality and symmetrically-shaped vessels; the number of pottery types made was greatly increased as well. The decoration of these objects was made with much greater care and artistic skill, and the designs used were greatly enriched and carefully selected.

Persian Pottery

In general the history of Iranian-Islamic pottery can be divided into three main periods Post-Sassanian or Early Islamic Period; Middle Islamic Period; Later Islamic Period.

In these three periods, which lasted for more than a thousand years, numerous pottery centers were established, which produced innumerable types of wares.

Currently, pottery art is popular in traditional and industrial ways in Iran, and its main centers are: Laljin, Hamedan, Meybod, Yazd, Kalporgan, Minab, Gilan, Gonabad, Shahreza and etc.

Laljin

Laljin is known as the Middle East pottery and ceramic works. 80 percent of the population of the city of Laljin is engaged in pottery and ceramic works.

Persian Pottery

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