Of many of the countless peoples and places Herodotus documented in his colossal Histories, only names and vestiges remain. Despite having been in the epicenter of a region continuously subject to invasion, bloodshed, intercultural tensions, and religious strife (to name a few malaises), Iranian culture has always managed, somehow or other, not only to survive, but to proudly flourish, despite various changes in its outward appearance and form. From the ashes of the remnants of the House of Sassan, and from the depths of the two centuries of silence emerged the voices of Rudaki, the first major poet to write in modern-day Persian
and Ferdowsi, who, in a labor of love composed the triumphant Shahnameh, Iran’s national epic celebrating pre-Islamic Iranian mythology and lore. Later, though Iran found itself yet again under foreign occupation—this time by Turco-Mongol dynasties from the East—Iranian art and architecture flourished and adapted itself to its new surroundings.
Iran later enjoyed a lavish renaissance at the hands of the first indigenous rulers of Iran since the Sassanians, the Safavids. Despite their religious zealotry and fervent promotion of Shi’ism (by sometimes questionable means), they ushered in a golden age of Iranian art and culture still looked upon with reverence and longing today by Iranians and non-Iranians alike.
Fast-forward some three hundred years, beyond the lost glory of Esfahan and the languid glances, dark tresses, and swarthy, curved eyebrows of the belles of the Qajar epoch, and on the eve of yet another cultural revolution, Iran’s art and culture was again being molded anew by its proud sons and daughters. Alongside the introduction of modern architecture and radical developments in literature (particularly the Sher-e No movement of modern poetry), the foundations of what would later be defined as contemporary Iranian art were being laid by the artists of the Saqqakhaneh
