What the myths are telling us?

In the recent years the positive impacts of mythical life and mythological literature has been manifested to everybody and people of the world have found out the potentialities of the mythology. In these years many books, papers, movies and artistic works, which have originated from the ancient nobility of different cultures and nations of the world, have been offered to the art world.

Nowadays all the people are trying to compromise themselves with the world and coordinate their lives with the realities of life through the myths and legends. We can return to our inner self through the myths and start to percept spiritual messages, symbols and signs. When a legend is engraved in our mind, we understand its relation to what is happening in our life and find ourselves in front of the future landscape of our destiny; and then we understand the mystery of our life through representation of hidden mysteries of the myths and miraculously achieve a different perception regarding our life and being guided to a kind of “living for transcedency” experience.

One of the prominent characteristics of this artistic style is concentrating on myths, signs and symbols and converting them to volume as an everlasting artwork for conveying our message to posterities.

Elements of the sculptures

In this style the sculptures, based on a deep-rooted belief in ancient nobility, are made from soil and plaster. The sculptor of these artistic works believes that in the past times numerous drums of war and peace have been beaten and many heroes have showed lot of braveries in the battlefields; the roars of their gallantries is still reverberating in those ancient lands and the dust cloud of their braveries is still spreading by the wind all around the world.

These messages and braveries are being given to the other nations as a gift; along this historical journey the dust cloud is passing on the ancient Zoroastrian temples and then firing like a candle flame on the top of them. The waves of the sculpture's cloths (“symbolism in volume”) are like the candle flame smoke on the top of the temple. Accordingly, the sculptor uses soil of the ancient land for creating each sculpture and manifests hidden syllabus, mysteries, melodies and roars of the soil for present and posterity audiences by composing the sculpture and music based on the existing numbers in music and “bahr-e arooz”.

Two methods of sculpture

1- Reductive method: like wooden and stone sculptures, which are created through working on a bulk to reduce its size to a proper one, based on the favorite form in the sculptor's mind.

2- Additive method: like clayish (soil), waxen, doughy and etc., sculptures, which are created through accumulating and adding materials to the sculpture's main frame.

Invaluable remained artistic works of ancient peoples and past generations like jugs, bowls, sculptures and many others have been made from clay and plaster, so when we see these works we can directly get the feelings of their creators and accordingly they are much precious than the same golden artistic works. In this style the sculptor, base on his belief in the soil's myth and for respecting to the ancient land and also for saving all feelings, efforts and memories in the moment of creating the artistic works, makes all of his works by clay and plaster and avoids from industrial moulding; so the created sculpture would be a unique one all around the world. For changing the original model to another material or for mass production, after creating the original sculpture by the sculptor, a handicraftsman makes a mould from the original model and then produces a bronzy, golden, silver, etc., sculpture based on that.

A very notable characteristic of the style and working method of this sculptor is creating sculptures based on research on the theme of the artistic work. As the sculptor is adding clay on the main frame of the sculpture to create his ideal model, he improves his knowledge and at the same time shares it with audiences through giving them explanations on the symbols and signs which are being used in the sculpture, in the form of texts and catalogues (this is a unique characteristic of this sculptor).

Bahr-e Arooz in the Persian literature

Arooz is balance of a rhythmic poem or speech. It has named Arooz because a poem regarding its rhythm is composed (Arz) based on that to make distinction between rhythmic and arrhythmic poems. The rhythm provides a distinct and specific form for poems and helps for a better understanding of the speech and also brings gratification to the soul. As there are different systems of songs and melodies in music, poems also have different systems and rhythms, which are named Bahr. Bahr is the main system of poem. In the Aroozi rhythm, motion & vowel are balanced with motion & vowel and motionless & silence are balanced with motionless & silence; and it is not necessary to have the same motions or vowels. The circle of the Aroozi rhythm is based on the melodies of motions (vowels) and motionless (silences).

Criterions of the Bahr are made through combining the fundamentals (Arkan) with each other and based on “F/A/L” letters; they are used as standards for comparing Bohoor (plural form of Bahr) and determining Aroozi rhythms. As, the elements are made through repetition of the fundamentals (Arkan), the Aroozi Bohor and rhythms are also made through repetition or combination of the elements.

Theory of the Modern Miniature Style

When we are looking around ourselves in a normal situation, what we see is just pure reality, but whenever a kind of disorder or an error of sight happens to us we begin to understand the complexity of the world around us and start to describe, analyze and express this complexity. In the modern miniature sculptures it has been tried to avoid from complexity of the “symbolism in volume” style; in the contrary, based on analytical simplification and also using traditional form in a proper place, in the modern miniature sculptures the main concept is presented in a very simple and clear way and at the same time different perceptions were combined and hidden in the sculpture which the audiences could find and understand them through visiting it. So we could see and understand peacefulness and hidden colorful essences of the Persian miniature in the angel of the sculptures' head, form of the shawls' waves and also angel of its hands.

In the old miniature style which was pervasive in the past centuries the countenances of the people were apathetic [1] , so feelings and messages were conveyed trough the environment, lines and colors of the artistic work; subsequently, in the current century it was added feeling countenances to the miniature works; but in the modern miniature style there is not any countenances, rather each visitor can find himself in the environment of the artistic work and be united with the calm and pure sole of the sculpture and attains to the essence of the modern miniature. In this style the line and angel of the sculpture's hands and head show the essence of the artistic work.

The modern miniatures are created based on plainness and earthiness; so the complexity of “symbolism in volume” style dose not exist in the modern miniatures but we could find the Persian essence and representation in them. The main emphasis and focus in these kinds of sculptures is going to a journey in the Iranian dream based on plainness and earthiness; a peaceful mystical and romantic world which has both, the complexity of the “symbolism in volume” style and plainness of the modern miniatures, i.e. the sculptures do not have ears, eyes, lips and mouths but they could hear, see and speak because they are mirror images of visitors in the sculpture inner self, which dialogs with the audiences.

Revitalizing the Persian miniature through the new mentioned perception is actually an important endeavor for knowing and understanding ourselves and also a unique spiritual experience. Peacefulness of the appearances in the modern miniatures expresses a mystical and spiritual inner self. When we see ourselves in the mirror of the modern miniature countenance, which has no details and parts in the people's faces, we feel that it is a part of our inner being which had been lost for a while and now we have found it again in a more plainness and earthiness way.

The modern miniature style considers a universal vision through flying through the Persian dream. This style gets the very rich inner self and messages of the ancient Persian miniature and at the same time has a vague mystical vision toward the future. It includes a new translation for the modern world and conveys ancient message for the posterities.