Study of the Relationship Between Text and Image in Luster Tiles of Ilkhanid Period

The most important contribution of Muslim potters, the application of luster to a ceramic surface was not limited to vessels. As early as the ninth century, this costly technique was applied to wall tiles to distinguish parts of buildings. In the eastern Islamic lands during the medieval era, the use of colored tiles — decorated with luster but with other techniques as well — increased in complexity and scope. In both religious and secular buildings, large surface areas came to be sheathed in brilliant ceramic revetments. The use of glazed ceramics for architectural decoration continued into the early modern era, culminating in the great monuments of the Safavid and Ottoman Empires. Although the star tiles bear self-contained designs, they were intended to interlock with cruciform tiles in a grid. Three of the tiles feature inscriptions. The two large stars, which were probably intended for the interior of a religious shrine, reproduce verses from the Qurʾan in Arabic. The tile with figural imagery bears fragments of poetry in Persian, demonstrating the revival of Persian as a literary language in the medieval era. Although Mongol conquests initially brought devastation and affected the balance of artistic production, in a short period of time, the control of most of Asia by the Mongols, created an environment of tremendous cultural exchange. Following the conversion to Islam of Il-Khan Mahmud Ghazan (r. 1295–1304) in 1295 and the establishment of his active cultural policy in support of his new religion, Islamic art flourished once again. East Asian elements absorbed into the existing Perso-Islamic repertoire created a new artistic vocabulary, one that was emulated from Anatolia to India, profoundly affecting artistic production. During the Ilkhanid period, the decorative arts—textiles, pottery, metalwork, jewelry, and manuscript illumination and illustration—further developed along established lines. The arts of the book, however, including illuminated and illustrated manuscripts of religious and secular texts, became a major focus of artistic production. Baghdad became an important center once again. In illustration, new ideas and motifs were introduced into the repertoire of the Muslim artist, including an altered and more Chinese depiction of pictorial space, as well as motifs such as lotuses and peonies, cloud bands, and dragons and phoenixes. Popular subjects, also sponsored by the court, included well-known stories such as the Shahnama (Book of Kings), the famous Persian epic. Furthermore, the widespread use of paper and textiles also enabled new designs to be readily transferred from one medium to another. Luster tile was the most common and famous technique in tile decoration and among the luster tiles of Ilkhanid period (756-654 A.H.) in Iran, varieties of patterns can be found: tiles with plant, animal and human motifs. Some of these tiles have inscriptions on their edges that help to understand the image better. Since the number of luster tiles with these characteristics is relatively high, it seems that the examination of the types of motifs and inscriptions on these tiles is a source for further understanding of the art and literature of this period. This research seeks to answer the question, what is the relationship between the designs of the tiles and the inscriptions of the Ilkhanid luster tiles? The main purpose of this research is to get a deeper understanding of the luster tiles of the Ilkhanid period and to study the relationship between the image and its inscriptions. The importance of identifying and introducing the capabilities of Iranian arts and their role in the history of Iranian art and culture is one of the necessities of this research. The current research was conducted qualitatively and in a descriptive-analytical way. Collecting library data and reading images from valid databases. By dividing the motifs of these tiles into plant, animal, and human, this research investigates the relationship between these motifs and their inscriptions. With this division, a number of tiles were selected for each category by non-probability sampling method and matched with their marginal inscriptions. The variety of motifs of these lusters tiles and the presence of inscriptions next to them doubles the importance of examining the relationship between the motif and the text. This research comes to the conclusion that the motifs of luster tiles of the Ilkhanid period are in three categories of plant, animal and human motifs and the text used for each type of these motifs has a different theme related to the role.