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The 6th July saw the opening of the Royal Persian Painting: The Qajar Epoch 1785-1925 exhibition at the Brunei Gallery, in London. The exhibition, which was organised by the Brooklyn Museum in New York, has visited Los Angeles and New York before arriving in London, its only European destination.
This is an impressive and highly significant exhibition for it boasts of over one hundred oil paintings, photographs and artefacts brought together from European, American, Russian and Iranian collections for the first time. Paintings of the Qajar epoch mark an important watershed in Iranian art. The late eighteenth and nineteenth century saw the transition from the opulence and lavishness typified by Safavid courtly art, to a more reflective and interiorised naturalism which set the tone for the piety and conservatism of twentieth century Iran.
Fath Ali Shah Seated
On entering the exhibition's darkened room, one is immediately struck by the vivid colour and gloss luminating from the full length portraits. These depict Fath Ali Shah (reigned 1797-1834), the nephew and successor of Aqa Muhammad Khan (reigned 1785-97) the founder of the Qajar dynasty. Fath Ali Shah is portrayed as the embodiment of regal beauty and perfection. His crown and accessories are encrusted with gold and jewels. The artist has rendered the patterning and the texture of the royal costume in incredibly meticulous detail. Lack of perspective results in a flatness and frontality which only adds to the poise and elegance of the Shah. The result now, as it must have been two centuries ago, is breathtaking. Fath Ali Shah's reign was a period of great creativity and artistic patronage. Numerous buildings and monuments were erected and hundreds of paintings and poems were commissioned to expound the reatness and power of the ruler. Portraits such as these were often sent to the foreign powers in Britain, Russia, France and Austro-Hungary as royal gifts.
Fath Ali Shah saw himself as a successor not only to the preceding Safavid and Zand monarchs, but also as heir to the great Sasanian and Achaemenid Persian dynasties. These pretensions are shown in the luxurious glamour of early Qajar painting.
Fath Ali Shah's preoccupation with art and the centralisation of his court in Teheran meant that the borders of the Qajar kingdom were weak and insufficiently protected. Iran was not ready for two Russian attacks between 1805 and 1828, which would result in the loss of Georgia and parts of Armenia. Britain was Iran's main ally against Russia, as she had been against the Ottomans. Paintings located in the rear section of the ground floor of the exhibition depict battle scenes of the period. As with the portraits, what the battle scenes do not have in perspective, they make up for in their precision, minute detail and vivid colour.
Nasir al-Din Shah
The Qajars relied heavily on British and European military expertise during the reign of Fath Ali Shah and that of his successors, Muhammad Shah (reigned 1834-48) and later, Nasir al-Din Shah (reigned 1848-96). Visits to Europe became more frequent, European style military schools were founded and a flood of Western influences seeped into Iran. The Qajars, perhaps unwisely, began to model themselves on their European and Ottoman counterparts in an attempt to become more 'modern'. Early portraits of Nasir al-Din Shah, in the lower basement galleries, bear the same bejewelled splendour of Fath Ali Shah, while later portraits show a less idolised, more human ruler, seated in military costume. The academic, western style of portraiture which Iranian painters adopted shows the influence of photography, a 'modern' medium which the Shah was keen for his artists to explore.
For the first time, painters began to produce still life and religious narrative painting. Other subjects included the ta'ziyeh dramatic passion plays and depictions of female dancers and concubines which were more erotic than in previous times. These secular paintings have been called 'coffee house' art as they were usually hung in private dwellings or intimate meeting places.
Nasir al-Din Shah was an avid collector of European painting and he welcomed all Western innovations and ideas, despite the growing resentment and political unease which resulted in his assassination in 1896
