An Illustrated Tilework of the Qajar Era; an Evidence of Consolidation of Iran’s National Authority in the International Arena (Available at Victoria& Albert Museum)

National authority is a kind of rightful power, governing all potentials of a nation and attaining an enormous part of its validation and identity in their culture, through different mechanisms such as art, because although art provides a kind of visual pleasure in its outward appearance based on the aesthetic elements, it has also the potential to convey messages and thoughts and display political and social necessities of its own era in its hidden perspective and deep meaningful layers. Thus, as Foucault believed, each artwork is the meeting of different political and social debates which may be investigated for the purpose of identifying and analyzing the hidden meanings of authority, power and sovereignty. In this regard, the present research, with a case study approach, has focused on a tile tabletop from Qajar era, a work by Ali Muhammad Isfahani, so as to answer this question: How and by means of which characteristics are the content-based layers of its figures and illustrations created to become a visual proof of consolidation of national authority of Iran in international arena and to display such meaning? To answer accordingly, studies were conducted with reference to reliable library-electronic resources and based on iconological criticism approach to elaborate on the way the meaning was given to such tiles. The analysis displays that if the national authority is based on these three elements: identity factors, sense of belonging to such factors and knowledge of such factors, the artist has carried out illustration and visual narration according to all these elements. In fact, the artist has not merely intended to display the identity factors and belongingness, but he had a comprehensive and extensive knowledge of them and has taken action in creating decorative drawings and figures, relying on such knowledge and comprehension for the following reasons:
1- From all verse, prose and folk stories which have always been reflecting the thoughts of the Iranians in ups and downs of historical events, the artist has chosen some stories which emphasize on political heritage of the Iranians and their victories against the enemies’ invasions more than the others. Therefore, he has chosen five stories from Shahnameh, three stories from Hosseinnameh and one from Ghahremannameh.
2- Whereas he was aware that Houshang is the first king of the world after Kiomars and the founder of mythical ages of the world, he has placed the illustrations of such characters on the head of the tabletop and has set that as a base for placement and sequence of other illustrations.
3- He has made endeavors to convey some messages such as honor, bravery, courage, patience, chivalry, compassion, generosity, loyalty, patriotism, sacrifice and defense in the framework of interests of Iranian nation, and to hide them under visual layer of his artwork, because he created this artwork in a situation when he was first, completely aware of the position of its orderer, Robert Murdoch Smith, and he knew that this tile tabletop would be sent abroad to the UK after its creation and delivery, and second, he had accepted such order at a time when a new period of endangering historical borders and territorial integrity of Iran was started.
4- Whereas he was aware that authority is not an abstract concept and that it will come to existence when it is considered proportional to each period of time, he has made use of the common technique of that period, which is underglaze painting with light and bright colors in forming the mechanism of his artwork. Although, in this regard he obliged himself to display such mechanism with Iranian and Islamic attributes. Therefore, he refers to the tradition of accompaniment with literary contents; exactly in the middle of the period when tendency to modernism and to disconnect from literature became popular following the west.  Further, he has made use of rules and principles of Persian miniature.
Thus, we can generally conclude that Ali Muhammad Isfahani has not just intended to display his antecedent through repeating the historical patterns in the exact same form, but he was completely aware of all identity factors such as history, geography and territory, political heritages and government and cultural and scientific heritages, and connected them to the visual elements of his artwork in line with a specific and purposeful orientation. In other words, he has institutionalized them as the meaningful layers of visual elements of his artwork to signify a proof of an illustration of consolidation of national authority of Iran in international arena in the form of a painted tile tabletop; narrating the interesting ancient stories of Iran.