From the prehistoric paintings found in the walls of Iran's many caves down to modern Iranian paining; from the early stone carvings down to the statues created by Parviz Tanavoli the great contemporary sculpture; from the most ancient dwellings found in Syalk hills, near Kashan which date back 8,000 years to the beautiful architecture of Safavid era; from the earliest pieces of textile dating back to 8,500 ago, to the exquisite silk carpets woven today; from the early verses of Avesta down to the superb poems of Hafez, Ferdowsi and Saadi, and further down to contemporary Shahryar, Moshiri, Moayeri, Nima, Sepehri... Iran is tremendously rich in arts and in literature.
Iran can be better understood through its arts and literature rather than its kings, conquests and victories. Although very large parts of the past works of art and literature have disappeared throughout the centuries of Iran's tumultuous history, enough remains in various parts of Iran and almost every major archeological museums of the world, to reveal the extraordinary talent this nation possesses.
Every piece of Iranian art or literature is strongly bound to the nation's mode of living and to its history. Its generally melancholic music reflects the cruelties, massacres, invasions... the nation has had to bear, and yet, because of the diverse natural conditions of the country, the same music is delicate and penetrating. The intricate, detailed and delightful decorative designs on the earthenware and ceramic objects, the many palaces and mosques... reflect the nation's deep and penetrating power of perception. Th great heights of its towers, minarets and domes indicate the nation's high aspiration and ambitions.
The immense bridges are hands extended in friendship inviting other nations. Iranians carved the most beautiful shapes in the hardest rocks; extracted delightful colors from seemingly worthless plants and obtained exquisite silk from ugly worms. Then they used them to weave magnificent carpets by the small hands of young women. Iranians used crude words to create penetrating poetry.
It would be futile to attempt writing adequately about Iranian arts and literature in a short article or even in a few volumes of books. Each Iranian art must be viewed from many different aspects. For example, many books have so far been written by various authors and researchers on the various aspects of Takhte Jamshid (Persepolis), yet many many more can be written.
In the following chapters many architectural features and fascinating sights have been introduced. Yet, there are many points about Iranian music, painting, calligraphy, literature (especially poem)... that remain unsaid because of shortage of space.
Iranians have been closely familiar with music for thousands of years and have developed many instruments and musical styles. It is very interesting that, besides the many professional musicians, there have always been prominent Iranian scholars who have also been great musicians, among them Farabi (d 951), and Avicenna (d 1025).
Iranian musicians have left behinds a large number of books on the subject, on styles and instruments, although, until modern times, Iranians did not use musical notes and had to learn music by heart.
Iranian music uses many wind, string and percussion instruments. Many old instruments used in traditional Iranians music have been refined throughout the ages: Among them the tar and setar which belong to the guitar family, kamancheh, a primitive violin, and ney an early version of the flute, and santour another string instruments.
Different styles of music are played in the various Iranian provinces, but everywhere in Iran music is played to celebrate and feast, as well as to mourn and lament. Iranians also enjoy Western, Arabic and Indian music, both traditional and modern. Many composers in Iran, today, specialize in combining Western and Iranian styles to create wonderful new themes. Today, one can find tapes and CDs of both traditional and modern music in Iran, including the music of the West.
Iranians are undoubtedly the greatest lovers of poetry, and have given the world many an exceptional poet. Avesta, the holy book of the Zoroastrians, which is the oldest written document of the Aryan people, consists of verses as old as 3,000 years.
Until the arrival of Islam in Iran, Iranians used the cuneiform, Pahlavi and Avestai scripts. But on accepting Islam they also adopted the Arabic alphabet, while preserving their own language and culture. By blending with Arabic, the old Pahlavi developed into the post-Islamic Persian language, a much richer and melodious tongue.
During the first two centuries following the arrival of Islam, Iranians did not produce any literary work of significance as they were going through a period of transition and change. But gradually the new Persian language emerged and poets appeared here and there.
From the 10th century till the 15th, Iran produced a member of outstanding poets who contributed to the human literary legacy. A language was offered the world that enriched all other tongues and was adopted by other nations, notably India. In India, for centuries the court language was Persian and the greatest poets wrote their poems in Persian.
When the new literature first emerged, the poems were mainly epics glorifying Iran's past, to soothe the hearts of a great nation, now humiliated. The zenith of this movement is Ferdowsi's Shahnameh or the Book of Kings. Ferdowsi spent 30 years of his life to say 60,000 verses relating Iran's mythologies and heroic actions of its great men, real or mythical. He revived the Iranian language, literature and identity and he claims to have done so himself in his poems.
Omar Khayyam, the great Iranian astronomer, mathematician and philosopher produced a number couplets which made him and Fitzgerals, the British poet who translated them into English, world-renowned. Nasser Khosro was both a great poet and a traveler/author whose account of a journey to Egypt is a remarkable piece of literary and travel writing. Beihaghi, a court secretary and a historian wrote the history of the Ghaznavid Dynasty so vividly and with such fidelity and truth, that it has become both a historic, and a literary masterpiece.
Eventually the period of epic poetry was passed and philosophical and love poems as well as mystical poetry became current. Nezami is the greatest Iranian writer of love poems with worldwide fame. Attar is the most prominent mystic poet who left much effect on the thoughts and poems of another most prominent mystic poet Mowlavi (Rumi). Mowlavi was already a mystic poet when he met Shams Tabrizi but on receiving the thoughts of Shams an upheaval took place within him and he was entirely lost himself in the love of God. A translation of Mowlavi's mystic poems, recently available in the US, has been a best-seller for the past few years.
Saadi is certainly the greatest poet of 14th century whose poems are in parts mystical, in parts moral and mainly social. He deals with important social and moral issues of his and all times.
But the crown of Persian poets is Hafez who expresses very subtle and refined thoughts in exquisite poetry that deal with love, morals, mysticism, life... There is hardly an Iranian home where a volume of Hafez cannot be found. He has a profound effect, not only on Iranian literature and the later poets, but also on the literature and cultures of many other nations. Goethe, the illustrious German poet, is a Western thinker who has great admiration for Hafez and admits being deeply influenced by him. These are but a few - the most outstanding - of Iranian poets, whose number is exceedingly large.
The reader should note about Persian poetry, that it has a very strict rhythm and rhyme, or prosody, and so it does not easily render itself well to translations. So, many of the Persian verses translated into English, German and French are not very close to the original. But since early 19th century Europeans have done a great deal to present Iranian poetry and thought to the West.
Modern Persian poetry, developed early 20th century under the influence of Western free verse. The first man to say poetry that was quite different from traditional Persian poetry, both in form and content, was Nima Yushij. Today, however, eighty years later, this form of poetry is commonplace in the country.
It should be noted that despite the enormous upheavals Iran has experienced, today Iranians can understand Ferdowsi's poems that were written over 1000 years ago. They can read and understand Khayyam, Mowlavi, Saadi and Hafez without need for interpretation or explanation.
Novel writing, in the Western sense, is something Iranians learnt form the West in relatively recent times, and yet already this is a serious literary form and highly popular. Some masterpieces have been produced during the short history of this type of literary work, in Iran.
The Iranian cinema has made great advances especially following the Islamic Revolution. Iranian producers and directors carefully avoid sex and violence to produce delicate works on ordinary life or social issues. A number of these films have won prizes in the major international festivals such as those of Canne and Venice.