An Analysis of the Evolution Forms of Metalworking Art throughout the Safavieh Era (With an Emphasis on Bowls and Cups)

Safavieh era, as the longest and the most effective era of post-Islamic history, was the flourishing age of industrial arts and handicrafts. Throughout this period, areas of society, religion, economy, and politics gained distinguishable structures; the need for distinction from other countries by officializing the Shi’a religion and defending Safavieh dynasty against other rivals/competitors, reinforced some preliminaries that their outcomes were alterations in the approaches and procedures of craftsmen, artists, and industries in Iran. Despite the gradual development of industry after the rule of king Abbas Safavi, establishing and renewing the industrial workshops in Safavieh era, provided the art with some opportunities to enjoy innovative and creative elements in line with religious, political, social evolutions and commercial relationships with eastern and western territories. In addition, coincidence of this long period of time with the rising of some prominent Persian artists and literary and Iranian Muslim scientists and philosophers, as well as paying attention to and influencing on cultural and commercial relationships with Europeans provided excellent occasions for a significant historical transmission from middle century to a new Iran. Metalworking is reckoned as an important branch of industrial arts that underwent many considerable changes due to its long background in manufacturing and producing through the different historical periods. Clearly, during the Safavieh era, these changes due to effective factors on structures of government and society became more solid and distinctive. It seems that industrial arts in the Safavieh era had a direct relationship with the condition of unions and social-religious conditions of society. Different classes of society, from market to mosque, Saqakhaneh and Zurkhaneh, from palace and seraglio to fortune tellers’ astrolabes, all contributed to forming metalworking art and its revolutions. These revolutions emerged from the heart of social, religious, economic, and political structures and in this study two of them- social and religious approaches- will be analyzed. The purpose of the present study is to identify underpinnings of evolutions in the structure of form and function of metalworking arts on the flow of two important approaches throughout the Safavieh era, that are religious and social ones, as well as verification of significant and unified content of metalworking art in this era in metallic bowls and cups. The proposed research questions are as follows: 1. How are the effects of religious and social approaches on metalworking in the Safavieh era defined? 2. What are the contents of the form and function of evolutions in metallic objects throughout the Safavieh era? Research design is descriptive-analytic with a qualitative approach. The data collection method is libertarian and field study. Case studies are metallic bowls and cups and the sampling method was studying private collections, museum samples, and field research. Analysis was performed on details of form, function, and symbols of Safavieh-era bowls and cups, and comparative analogy with other samples would define them. The results of the present study show that defining evolution affected by a religious factor during the Safavieh era appears like Shi’a concepts in epigraphs and images. At once, a social indicator that exhibits those ancient Iranian concepts evolves in both form and meaning among unions and craftsmen. However, what leads these results to a different direction regarding the metallic objects of this era is the similarity with the meaning of objects’ role that apparently has different forms and functions. Deeper layers of meaningful content in different historical sections especially in the Safavieh era can be investigated. To respond to the first research question, it is noteworthy that both social and religious approaches had some impact on each other and on metalworking art during the Safavieh era as well. Analyzing indicators of both approaches identifies a kind of evolution that refers to diversity in the metallic bowls. That means throughout an age when artists are ritualistic and myth-centered, they utilize metallic bowls for magic and hex, ancient medicinal sorcery, or evoking evil spirits from the human body. When we reach an era in which they do not believe in myths, and ritualistic and religious beliefs have been replaced, the form of the bowls and their type change. The second research question has been responded in such a way that in the Safavieh era old beliefs existed in lower layers of the implications of bowls and there was the belief that metal and incantation could eliminate evil and wickedness and conflict with them. Simultaneously, a number of ayahs of holly Quran and some prayers written in Arabic-numerical letters (Abjad) along with some particular symbols were inscribed on bowls in order to conflict with evil and spiritual forces; such as the bowls that were supposed to help people to get married, to eliminate illness from sick people, or to be used to drink water in shrines. Therefore, pictorial elements have a symbolic nature and determine the manner of connecting to an immaterial world.