Historiography of Applied Arts of Iran based on Supplementary Sources

Introduction: Harmful factors in applied arts have caused a lot of information about the evolution of these products and also the surrounding information to be in a halo of ambiguity. The perishability of many such works in terms of the characteristics of the materials used has caused the greatest damage to the body of their historical studies, and this problem has made historical and paleontological studies and researches related to these products face difficulties. The lack of written sources has hidden most of the questions in the field of theoretical research of applied arts. Therefore, a historical researcher should continue the work of historical reconstruction of their body of study with parallel and complementary tools and methods. The necessity of this type of research is in the direction of creating resources, extracting the dark spots of the applied arts of Islamic Iran and authenticating production works related to this border and landscape.
Purposes & Questions: Classification of complementary sources to create a model in order to clarify the historiography of applied arts of Iran based on written sources is one of the goals of this research. The research questions are:  1- In what classification can Iran's applied arts be reconstructed from complementary sources? 2- What pattern can be used in re-reading written sources to provide a clearer picture of the state of applied arts in historical periods?
Methods: The research method in the present research is based on the objective, fundamental and theoretical research, and in terms of method, it is a qualitative research, and in terms of the method of gathering information, both in the historical and theoretical parts, it is considered a library and documentary research. Data analysis has also been conducted qualitatively.
Findings & Results: The results of this study show that the supplementary sources classified in this research, focusing on historical written sources, have the ability to extract important points from the obvious and hidden angles of this type of production. In response to the first question, it can be said that specialized sources, direct sources and indirect sources are classifications that can be designed on the basis of which the relative reconstruction of Iran's applied arts can be achieved. Despite the limitations of subject matter in specialized sources due to the focus on the field of writing and related arts, valuable points about the theoretical issues of art and art schools and centers, criticism and evaluation of some artists, comparative study and comparison between artists, explanation of primary materials and some related tools, introduction of royal libraries and description of their activities, description of social and surrounding issues of artists are presented. And dealing with the personal and individual aspects of artists can be presented.
In direct sources, the same features are repeated, in addition to the fact that the subject limitation is wider compared to specialized sources. Painting, architecture and related decorations, music, tiling, pottery and artists, traditional textiles, performing arts, etc. are some of the subjects that can be addressed. In the first two parts of the historiography, most of the cases are based on the artist and the relationship between master and student.
On the other hand, the topics addressed in the field of artists' criticism, comparison of artists, sacred origin of art, social issues and angles of artists, etc. - in addition to the inherent characteristics of reflecting the evolution of artists in these two sources; they have the ability to classify the theoretical topics of art based on local sources. In the classification of indirect sources, since the frequency and abundance of words related to artistic products and their quantitative and qualitative analysis in historical and literary sources are of interest; the list of desired products is usually from the list of provincial taxes, war spoils, statements of property status, mention of gifts, mention of observations, mention of import and export, poet's use of words related to poetic analogy in the sources of literary poems.
In response to the second question, it can be said that in reconstructing the history of applied arts based on historical written sources, the researcher should accurately identify the historical and literary books in terms of credibility, informational capabilities, and the qualitative and quantitative frequency of the desired specialized vocabulary. The researcher should first extract and classify the relevant words and then analyze those words based on a predetermined pattern. In the qualitative analysis of texts, the researcher usually interprets the content of textual data through systematic classification processes or the design of known patterns. In this section, the extracted content is examined through a systematic classification process. According to the model of systematic classification, by analyzing words in the form of descriptive combinations, conducting conceptual analysis of texts with the aim of valuing products, and applying the hypothesis of vocabulary contiguity, more complete information about the subjects in the field of artistic products can be obtained.