Aziz Art
March 2017
Richard Serra
ZAHRAH ALGHAMDI Farhad Moshiri
Muqarnas competition
Norooz Festival
1- Richard Serra 10- Competition 11-Zahra Al-Ghamdi 14-Competition 15-Farhad Moshiri 18-Muqarnas 22-Norooz Festival
Director: Aziz Anzabi Editor : Nafiseh Yaghoubi Translator : Asra Yaghoubi Research: Zohreh Nazari
http://www.aziz_anzabi.com
Richard Serra
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Richard Serra influence on his later work. Serra (born November 2, 1938) is an discussed his early life and American minimalist sculptor and influences in an interview in 1993. video artist known for working with He described the San Francisco large-scale assemblies of sheet shipyard where his father worked metal.Serra was involved in the as a pipe-fitter as another Process Art Movement. He lives important influence to his work, and works in Tribeca, New York, saying of his early memory: “All the and on Cape Breton Island in Nova raw material that I needed is Scotia contained in the reserve of this Early life and education memory which has become a Serra was born on November 2, reoccurring dream.� 1938, in San Francisco as the Serra studied painting in the M.F.A. second of three sons. His father, program at the Yale University Tony, was a Spanish native of School of Art and Architecture Mallorca who worked as candy between 1961 and 1964. Fellow factory foreman. His mother, Yale Art and Architecture alumni of Gladys Feinberg, was a the 1960s include the painters, Los Angeles-born Russian Jewish photographers, and sculptors Brice immigrant from Odessa (she Marden, Chuck Close, Nancy committed suicide in 1979). He Graves, Gary Hudson and Robert went on to study English literature Mangold. He claims to have taken at the University of California, most of his inspiration from the Berkeley in 1957 before artists who taught there, most transferring to the University of notably Philip Guston and the California, Santa Barbara, experimental composer Morton graduating with a B.A. in Feldman, as well as designer Josef 1961.[9][10] While at Santa Albers. With Albers, he worked on Barbara, he studied art with his book Interaction of Color Howard Warshaw and Rico Lebrun. (1963).He continued his training On the West Coast, he helped abroad, spending a year each in support himself by working in steel Florence and Paris. In 1964, mills, which was to have a strong
he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship for Rome,where he lived and worked with his first wife, sculptor Nancy Graves. Since then, he has lived in New York, where he first used rubber in 1966 and began applying his characteristic work material lead in 1968. In New York, his circle of friends included Carl Andre, Walter De Maria, Eva Hesse, Sol LeWitt, and Robert Smithson. At one point, to fund his art, Serra started a furniture-removals business, Low-Rate Movers,and employed Chuck Close, Philip Glass, Spalding Gray, and others.
1977, Serra and Weyergraf have resided on several floors of a former manufacturing building at 173 Duane Street in Tribeca. In 2011, the couple purchased the third floor of 173 Duane Street. Since the late 1970s, they have spent part of the year in an 18thcentury farmhouse on a hill above the Northumberland Strait in Inverness County, Nova Scotia. According to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Serra donated $28,000 to the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton in September 2016.
Collections Serra's work can be found in many international public and private Personal life collections, including the Museum Serra's older brother is the famed of Modern Art and the Solomon R. San Francisco trial attorney Tony Guggenheim Museum in New York, Serra.They have been estranged the Los Angeles County Museum of for almost 40 years, since their Art,and the San Francisco Museum mother committed suicide by of Modern Art. Since the early walking into the Pacific Ocean. 1970s, Serra has completed many Serra was married to private commissions, most of them Nancy Graves from 1965 to funded by European patrons 1970.He then married art historian Clara Weyergraf in 1981. Since
Private commissions in the United States include sculptures for Eli Broad (No Problem, 1995),Jeffrey Brotman, Peggy and Ralph Burnet (To Whom It May Concern, 1995), Gil Freisen, Alan Gibbs (Te Tuhirangi Contour, 1999-2001), Ivan Reitman, Steven H. Oliver (Snake Eyes and Boxcar, 1990– 93),Leonard Riggio, Agnes Gund (Iron Mountain Run, 2002) and Mitchell Rales. In 2006, Colby College acquired 150 works on paper by Serra, making it the second largest collection of Serra's work outside of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Large steel sculptures Around 1970, Serra shifted his activities outdoors and became a pioneer of large-scale site-specific sculpture. Serra often constructs site-specific installations, frequently on a scale that dwarfs the observer. His site-specific works challenge viewers’ perception of their bodies in relation to interior spaces and landscapes, and his work often encourages movement in and around his sculptures. Most famous is the "Torqued
Ellipse" series, which began in 1996 as single elliptical forms inspired by the soaring space of the early 17th century Baroque church San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane in Rome. Made of huge steel plates bent into circular sculptures with open tops, they rotate upward as they lean in or out Serra usually begins a sculpture by making a small maquette (or model) from flat plates at an inchto-foot ratio: a 40-foot piece will start as a 40-inch model.He often makes these models in lead as it is "very malleable and easy to rework continuously"; Torqued Ellipses, however, began as wooden models. He then consults a structural engineer, who specifies how the piece should be made to retain its balance and stability.The steel pieces are fabricated in Germany and installed by Long Island rigging company Budco Enterprises, with whom he has worked with for most of his career.The weathering steel he uses takes about 8-10 years to develop its characteristic dark, even patina of rust. Once the surface is fully oxidized, the color will remain relatively stable over the piece's life.
Serra's first larger commissions were mostly realized outside the United States. Shift (1970–72) consists of six walls of concrete zigzag across a grassy hillside in King City, Ontario. Spin Out (1972– 73), a trio of steel plates facing one another, is situated on the grounds of the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, the Netherlands.(Schunnemunk Fork (1991), a work similar to that of his in the Netherlands can be found in Storm King Art Center in Upstate New York.) Part of a series works involving round steelplates, Elevation Circles: In and Out (1972–77) was installed at Schlosspark Haus Weitmar in Bochum, Germany. For documenta VI (1977), Serra designed Terminal, four 41-foot-tall trapezoids that form a tower, situated in front of the main exhibition venue. After long negotiations, accompanied by violent protests, Terminal was purchased by the city of Bochum and finally installed at the city's train station in 1979.Carnegie (1984–85), a 39-foot-high vertical shaft outside the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh,
received high praise. Similar sculptures, like Fulcrum (1987), Axis (1989), and Torque (1992), were later installed in London's Broadgate, at Kunsthalle Bielefeld, and at Saarland University, respectively. Initially located in the French town of Puteaux, Slat (1985) consists of five steel plates - four trapezoidal and one rectangular each one roughly 12 feet wide and 40 feet tall, that lean on one another to form a tall, angular tepee. Already in 1989 vandalism and graffiti prompted that town’s mayor to remove it, and only in December 2008, after almost 20 years in storage, Slat was reanchored in La Défense. Because of its weight, officials chose to ground it in a traffic island behind the Grande Arche. In 1981, Serra installed Tilted Arc, a gently curved, 3.5 meter high arc of rusting mild steel in the Federal Plaza in New York City. There was controversy over the installation from day one, largely from workers in the buildings surrounding the plaza who complained that the steel wall obstructed passage through the plaza.
A public hearing in 1985 voted cloister of the MusĂŠe de Brou at that the work should be moved, Bourg-en-Bresse (1985); Threats of but Serra argued the sculpture Hell (1990) at the CAPC (Centre was site specific and could not be d'arts plastiques contemporains de placed anywhere else. Bordeaux) in Bordeaux; Octagon for Serra famously issued an oftenSaint Eloi (1991) in the village of quoted statement regarding the Chagny in Burgundy; and Elevations nature of site-specific art when he for L'AllĂŠe de la Mormaire in said, "To remove the work is to Grosrouvre (1993). Alongside those destroy it. works, Serra designed a series of " Eventually on March 15, 1989, forged pieces including Two Forged the sculpture was dismantled by Rounds for Buster Keaton (1991); federal workers and taken for scrap. Snake Eyes and Boxcars (1990In May 1989 the work was cut 1993), six pairs of forged hyperinto three parts and consigned to a dense Cor-Ten steel blocks;, AliNew York warehouse, and in 1999 Frazier (2001), two forged blocks of they were moved to a storage weatherproof steel; and Santa Fe space in Maryland.William Gaddis Depot (2006). satirized these events in his 1994 In 2000 he installed Charlie Brown, novel A Frolic of His Own. a 60-foot-tall sculpture in atrium of Serra continues to produce large- the new Gap Inc. headquarters in scale steel structures for sites San Francisco. To encourage throughout the world, and has oxidation, or rust, sprinklers were become particularly renowned for initially directed toward the four his monumental arcs, spirals, and German-made slabs of steel that ellipses, which engage the viewer make up the work . Working with in an altered experience of space. spheroid and toroid sections for the In particular, he has explored the first time, Betwixt the Torus and the effects of torqued forms in a series Sphere (2001) and Union of the of single and double-torqued Torus and the Sphere (2001) ellipses. He was invited to create a introduced entirely new shapes number of artworks in France: into Serra's sculptural Philibert et Marguerite in the
vocabulary.Wake (2003) was of Serra's work, incorporating installed at the Olympic Sculpture Snake into a collection entitled The Park in Seattle, with its five pairs of Matter of Time. The whole work locked toroid forms measuring 14 consists of eight sculptures feet high, 48 feet long and six feet measuring between 12 and 14 feet wide apiece.Each of these five in height and weighing from 44 to closed volumes is composed of two 276 tons. Already in 1982-84, he toruses, with the profile of a solid, had installed the permanent work vertically flattened S. La palmera in the Plaça de la Named for the late Joseph Pulitzer, Palmera in Barcelona. He has not Jr. (1913-1993), the rolled-steel always fared so well in Spain, elliptical sculpture Joe (2000) is the however; also in 2005, the Centro first in Serra's series of "Torqued de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid Spirals".It is, The 42.5-ton piece announced that the 38-tonne T.E.U.C.L.A., another part of the sculpture Equal-Parallel/Guernica"Torqued Ellipse" series and Serra's Bengasi (1986) had been first public sculpture in Southern "mislaid".In 2008, a duplicate copy California, was installed in 2006 in was made by the artist and the plaza of UCLA's Eli and Edythe displayed in Madrid. Broad Art Center.That same year, In spring 2005, Serra returned to the Segerstrom Center for the Arts San Francisco to install his first in Costa Mesa installed Serra's public work, Ballast (2004), in that Connector, a 66-foot-tall towering city (previous negotiations for a sculpture on a pentagonal base, on commission fell through) – two 50its plaza. foot steel blades in the main open Another famous work of Serra's is space of the new University of the mammoth sculpture Snake, a California, San Francisco (UCSF) trio of sinuous steel sheets campus. Weighing 160 tons, placing creating a curving path, the work in its Mission Bay location permanently located in the largest posed serious challenges, since it is, gallery of the Guggenheim Museumlike many parts of San Francisco, Bilbao. In 2005, the museum built on landfill. mounted an exhibition of more In 2008,,
Serra showed his installation Promenade, a series of five colossal steel sheets placed at 100-foot intervals through in the Grand Palais as part of the Monumenta exhibition; each sheet weighed 75 tonnes and was 17 meters in height. Serra was the second artistafter Anselm Kiefer, to be invited to fill the 13,500 m² nave of the Grand Palais with works created specially for the event. Birmingham City Council is currently considering a proposal for an outdoor installation by Serra in front of their new Library of Birmingham to replace the destroyed Forward sculpture by Raymond Mason in Centenary Square. In December 2011, Serra unveiled his sculpture 7 in Doha, Qatar. The sculpture, located at an
artificial plaza in Doha harbour, is composed of seven steel sheets and is 80-foot high. The sculpture was commissioned by the Qatar Museums Authority and took one year to be built.[43] In March 2014, Serra’s East-West/West-East, a sitespecific sculpture located at a remote desert location stretching more than a half-mile through Qatar's Ras Brouq nature reserve, was unveiled. In 2015, the sculptor's monumental work Equal, composed of eight blocks of steel and exhibited that year at David Zwirner in New York, was acquired by The Museum of Modern Art. In the past Serra has dedicated work to Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo, Marilyn Monroe, Buster Keaton, the German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder and the art critic David Sylvester.
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Saudi Arabian artist Zahra AlGhamdi A visual artist in which her art works reflect the memory of past traditional architecture from south Western KSA to explore the memory with emphasis on the poetics" ZAHRA The entire idea behind her work is a fascination with the earth as a concept. Dr. Zahra grew up in the South-western region of Saudi Arabia surrounded by traditional domestic architecture. The culturally-rich background of her childhood played a key role in
developing her artistic and conceptual direction. By creating an echo of the past, she brings the past into contact with the present, to demonstrate changes of style and architecture: from traditional techniques and materials to necessary resources. She uses her memories of places that are related to her childhood; drawing on an idea of ‘embodied memory’ through particular gestures which allows the viewer to be a part of her past and the present.
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Assistant professor at the Faculty of Art and Design - King Abdulaziz university. Education: Bachelor of Islamic Arts with an educational preparation Course at King Abdulaziz University, with first class honors, 1422 - (2003). Masters degree (Contemporary Craft) from Coventry University in the UK with honors in 2009. PhD. in Design and Visual Arts at Coventry University in Britain. Major Contributions: New Designer Gallery - London, January,2009. Herbert Gallery - Coventry, UK, 2010. Meter Room Gallery – Coventry, UK, 2011. Exhibition at the University of Warwick (Conference) - UK, 2011. Lanchester Gallery at Coventry University - UK, 2011. Tasami Gallery – Jeddah at Serafi Mall on January 29, 2015. Ather Gallary Gallery – Jeddah at Serafi Mall on January 25, 2016. The Gold Moor Gallery – Jeddah on February 18, 2016. Alserkal Avenue – Dubai on March 6, 2016. Dubai Art Gallary -Dubai on March 19, 2016. Ather Gallary – Jeddah at Serafi Mall on October 12, 2016. Certificates of Appreciation: A certificate of thanks and appreciation for giving a gift (artwork) to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz in a graduation ceremony (1420) at King Abdulaziz University. A certificate of thanks and appreciation fgiving an artwork as a gift to Her Highness the wife of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques campus (1421) at King Abdulaziz University. A certificate of thanks and appreciation for giving an artwork to princess Hissa AlShaalan , wife of the Crown Prince at King Abdulaziz University, 1421 H.
A certificate of thanks and appreciation for giving an artwork as a gift to the Rector Prof. Dr. Ghazi Obaid Madani – Rector of Abdulaziz University - 1422 H. scholarship to the University of Coventry worth 5,000 pounds. Symposiums and Conferences: Art in a cold climate ‘A Turning Point West Midlands event in partnership with Birmingham City University and the University of Warwick’ (conference 9 November 2011). Coventry University School of Art and Design (research student symposium11 May 2011). Second Academic Forum for Saudi Female Students in the UK and Ireland in University of Warwick (conference 21 May 2011). Research Symposium in Coventry University on June 30th , 2011 . Birmingham Institute of Art and Design: Collaborative Symposium on November 30th , 2010. Cutting Edge Symposium on November 9th ,2010: Lasers and creativity. Loughborough University School of Art and Design. FACETS ( the first Facets talk of the season on Thursday November10th with artist John Stezaker in GS22 (Graham Sutherland Lecture Theatre
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Farhad Moshiri born 1963 in Shiraz is an Iranian artist currently based in Tehran. His art work is rooted in Pop art dialect with a subtle, subversion socio-political commentary. Biography Moshiri studied fine arts at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California, in the 1980s, where he first started experimenting with installations, video art and painting. He received his MFA from California Institute of the Arts in 1984, before moving back to Tehran in 1991. He subsequently became well known for his ironic interpretations of hybrids between traditional Iranian forms and those of the consumerist and globalized popular culture widespread in his country.
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His painted jars, which form a trademark of his production, look like three-dimensional objects, bursting with popular foods, drinks and desserts, with popular scripts elegantly written on their body.Other significant works include Stereo Surround Sofa (2004), Silver Portrait on Red (2004), Diamond Brain (2004-5) and A Dream in Tehran (2007). His work is held in several public collections, including the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, the Farjam Collection, Dubai, and the British Museum, London. He is represented by The Third Line gallery in Dubai, Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin,Rodolphe Janssen in Brussels, and Thaddeus Ropac in Salzburg. 1984 MFA, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, California, USA SOLO EXHIBITIONS: 2017 The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, USA ( October 2017) 2014 "Float", Galerie Perrotin, New York, USA 2013 Galerie Perrotin, Hong Kong Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels, Belgium 2012 The Fire of Joy, Galerie Perrotin, Paris 2011 Shukran, The Third Line, Dubai Louis Vuitton commissioned works, Louis Vuitton UAE Stores, Dubai, UAE 2010 Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg 2009 Galerie Perrotin, Paris
2008 Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels, Belgium Galerie Perrotin, Art Basel Miami, USA 2007 Daneyal Mahmood Gallery, Chelsea NY CANDY STORE, The Third Line Gallery, Dubai 2006 Threshold of Hap, e x t r a s p a z i o, Rome Albareh Gallery, Bahrain Operation Supermarket, with Shirin Aliabadi, The Counter Gallery, London Operation Supermarket, with Shirin Aliabadi, Kolding Design School, Copenhagen The Third Line Gallery, Dubai 2004 e x t r a s p a z i o, Rome Art Space Gallery, curated by Isabelle Van Den Eynde De Rivieren, Dubai Kashya Hildebrand Gallery, New York 2003 Kashya Hildebrand Gallery, Geneva Leighton House Museum, curated by Rose Issa, London 2002 13 Vanak Street Gallery, Tehran 2001 Heaven,13 Vanak Street Gallery, Tehran 2000 13 Vanak Street Gallery, Tehran 1992 Seyhoun Gallery, Tehran, Iran
Muqarnas
Shah Mosque in Isfahan, Iran
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Muqarnas is a form of architectural ornamented vaulting, the "geometric subdivision of a squinch, or cupola, or corbel, into a large number of miniature squinches, producing a sort of cellular structure", sometimes also called a "honeycomb" vault. It is used for domes, and especially half-domes in entrances, iwans and apses, mostly in traditional Islamic and Persian architecture. Where some elements project downwards, the style may be called mocårabe;these are reminiscent of stalactites, and are sometimes called "stalactite vaults". Muqarnas developed around the middle of the 10th century in northeastern Iran and almost simultaneously — but apparently independently — in North Africa. Examples can be found across Morocco and by extension, the Alhambra in Granada, Spain, the Abbasid Palace in Baghdad, Iraq, and the mausoleum of Sultan Qaitbay, Cairo, Egypt. Large rectangular roofs in wood with muqarnas-style decoration adorn the 12th century Cappella Palatina
in Palermo, Sicily, and other important buildings in Norman Sicily. Muqarnas is also found in Armenian architecture. Structure Muqarnas is typically applied to the undersides of domes, pendentives, cornices, squinches, arches and vaults. Muqarnas is a downwardfacing shape; that is, a vertical line can be traced from the floor to any point on a muqarnas surface. It is also arranged in horizontal courses, as in a corbelled vault, with the horizontal joint surface having a different shape at each level. The edges of these surfaces can all be traced on a single plan view; architects can thus plan out muqarnas geometrically, as the image illustrates. Muqarnas does not have a significant structural role. Muqarnas need not be carved into the structural blocks of a corbelled vault; it can be hung from a structural roof as a purely decorative surface. Muqarnas may be made of brick, stone, stucco, or wood, and clad with tiles or plaster. The individual cells may be called alveoles. .
Some modern muqarnas elements have been designed, if not built, with upwards-facing cells;see also the Indian capitals above.
Sheikh lotfollah mosque
Norooz Festival
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Nowruz ( "New Day") is the name of the Iranian New Year, also known as the Persian and Kurdish New Year, is celebrated by Iranian peoples worldwide as the beginning of the new year. It has been celebrated for over 3,000 years in the Balkans, the Black Sea Basin, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Middle East.It marks the first day of the month of Farvardin in the Iranian calendar.
people from diverse ethnic communities and religious backgrounds for thousands of years. It is a secular holiday for most celebrants that is enjoyed by people of several different faiths, but remains a holy day for Zoroastrians. Origin Nowruz is partly rooted in the religious tradition of Iranian religions such as Zoroastrianism or even older in tradition of Mitraism because in Mitraism festivals had a Nowruz is the day of the deep linkage with the sun light. The astronomical vernal equinox (or Persian festivals of Yalda (longest northward equinox), which marks night) and Mehregan (autumnal the beginning of the spring in the equinox) and TiregÄ n (longest day) northern hemisphere and usually also had an origin in the Sun god occurs on March 21 or the (Surya). Among other ideas, previous/following day depending Zoroastrianism is the first on where it is observed. The monotheistic religion that moment the sun crosses the emphasizes broad concepts such as celestial equator and equalizes the corresponding work of good night and day is calculated exactly and evil in the world, and the every year and families gather connection of humans to nature. together to observe the rituals. Zoroastrian practices were dominant for much of the history of Although having Persian and ancient Persia (modern day Iran & religious Zoroastrian origins, Western Afghanistan). Nowruz has been celebrated by
Nowruz is believed to have been Ancient Iran. Due to its antiquity, invented by Zoroaster himself in there exist various foundation Balkh (modern-day Afghanistan), myths for Nowruz in Iranian although there is no clear date of mythology. In the Zoroastrian origin. Since the Achaemenid era tradition, the seven most important the official year has begun with the Zoroastrian festivals are the New Day when the Sun leaves the Gahambars and Nowruz, which zodiac of Pisces and enters the occurs at the spring equinox. zodiacal sign of Aries, signifying the According to Mary Boyce, Spring Equinox. Nowruz is also a “It seems a reasonable surmise that holy day for Sufi Muslims, Nowruz, the holiest of them all, Bektashis, Ismailis, Alawites,Alevis, with deep doctrinal significance, Babis and adherents of the Bahá'í was founded by Zoroaster Faith. himself.Between sunset on the day The term Nowruz in writing first of the 6th Gahanbar and sunrise of appeared in historical Persian Nowruz, Hamaspathmaedaya (later records in the 2nd century CE, but known, in its extended form, as it was also an important day during Frawardinegan) was celebrated. the time of the Achaemenids (c. This and the Gahanbar are the only 550–330 BCE), where kings from festivals named in the surviving text different nations under the Persian of the Avesta. Empire used to bring gifts to the The Shahnameh dates Nowruz as Emperor, also called King of Kings far back to the reign of Jamshid, (Shahanshah), of Persia on Nowruz. who in Zoroastrian texts saved The significance of Nowruz in the mankind from a killer winter that Achaemenid Empire was such that was destined to kill every living the great Persian king creature. The mythical Persian King Cambyses II's appointment as the Jamshid (Yima or Yama of the Indoking of Babylon was legitimized Iranian lore) perhaps symbolizes only after his participation in the the transition of the Indo-Iranians New Year festival from animal hunting to animal History and tradition husbandry and a more settled life The celebration has its roots in in human history
In the Shahnameh and Iranian mythology, he is credited with the first day when the universe started foundation of Nowruz. In the its motion.The Persian historian Shahnama, Jamshid constructed a Abu Saʿīd Gardēzī in his work titled throne studded with gems. He had Zayn al-Akhbār under the section of demons raise him above the earth the Zoroastrians festivals mentions into the heavens; there he sat on Nowruz (among other festivals) and his throne like the sun shining in specifically points out that the sky. The world's creatures Zoroaster highly emphasized the gathered in wonder about him celebration of Nowruz and and scattered jewels around him, Mehregan. and called this day the New Day or History No/Now-Ruz. This was the first day Nowruz in Persia of the month of Farvardin (the first Persepolis all nations staircase. month of the Persian calendar). Notice the people from across the The Persian scholar Abu Rayhan Achaemenid Persian Empire Biruni of the 10th century CE, in his bringing gifts. Some scholars have Persian work "Kitab al-Tafhim li associated the occasion to be Awa'il Sina'at al-Tanjim" provides a either Mehregan or Nowruz. description of the calendar of Shah Tahmasp I and Humayun various nations. Besides celebrating Nowvruz festival, 16th the Persian calendar, various century, Isfahan, Persia festivals of Arabs, Jews, Sabians, Although it is not clear whether Greeks and other nations are proto-Indo-Iranians celebrated a mentioned in this book. In the feast as the first day of the section on the Persian calendar , calendar, there are indications that he mentions Nowruz, Sadeh, both Iranians and Indians may have Tiregan, Mehregan, the six observed the beginning of both Gahanbar, Parvardegaan, autumn and spring, related to the Bahmanja, Isfandarmazh and harvest and the sowing of seeds, several other festivals. respectively, for the celebration of According to him: It is the belief of new year. the Persians that Nowruz marks the
Boyce and Grenet explain the Hall, traditions for seasonal festivals were built for the specific purpose and comment: "It is possible that of celebrating Nowruz. Although the splendor of the Babylonian there may be no mention of festivities at this season led the Nowruz in recorded Achaemenid Persians to develop their own inscriptions (see picture),there is a spring festival into an established detailed account by Xenophon of a new year feast, with the name Nowruz celebration taking place in Navasarda 'New Year' (a name Persepolis and the continuity of this which, though first attested festival in the Achaemenid through Middle Persian tradition.in 539 BC the Jews came derivatives, is attributed to the under Persian rule thus exposing Achaemenian period). Since the both groups to each other's communal observations of the customs. According to ancient Iranians appear in general EncyclopÌdia Britannica, the story to have been a seasonal ones, and of Purim as told in the Book of related to agriculture, it is Esther is adapted from a Persian probable, that they traditionally novella about the shrewdness of held festivals in both autumn and harem queens suggesting that spring, to mark the major turning Purim may be a transformation of points of the natural year". the Persian New Year. A specific We have reasons to believe that novella is not identified and the celebration is much older than EncyclopÌdia Britannica itself that date and was surely notes that "no Jewish texts of this celebrated by the people and genre from the Persian period are royalty during the Achaemenid extant, so these new elements can times (555–330 BC). It was, be recognized only inferentially". therefore, a highly auspicious The Encyclopaedia of Religion and occasion for the ancient Iranian Ethics notes that the Purim holiday peoples. It has been suggested is based on a lunar calendar while that the famous Persepolis Nowruz occurs at the spring complex, or at least the palace of equinox (solar calendar). Apadana and the Hundred Columns
The two holidays are therefore Sassanids established their power celebrated on different dates but in West Asia around 300 CE, within a few weeks of each other, Parthians celebrated Nowruz in depending on the year. Both Autumn and 1st of Farvardin began holidays are joyous celebrations. at the Autumn Equinox. During Given their temporal associations, Parthian dynasty the Spring Festival it is possible that the Jews and was Mehragan, a Zoroastrian and Persians of the time may have Iranian festival celebrated in honor shared or adopted similar customs of Mithra. for these holidays. The story of Extensive records on the Purim as told in the Book of Esther celebration of Nowruz appear has been dated anywhere from following the accession of Ardashir 625–465 BC (although the story I of Persia, the founder of the takes place with the Jews under Sassanid dynasty (224–651 CE). the rule of the Achaemenid Under the Sassanid Emperors, Empire and the Jews had come Nowruz was celebrated as the most under Persian rule in 539 BC), important day of the year. Most while Nowruz is thought to have royal traditions of Nowruz such as first been celebrated between royal audiences with the public, 555–330 BC. It remains unclear cash gifts, and the pardoning of which holiday was established prisoners, were established during first. the Sassanian era and persisted Nowruz was the holiday of unchanged until modern times. Arsacid/Parthian dynastic Empires Nowruz, along with Sadeh who ruled Iran (248 BC-224 CE) (celebrated in mid-winter), survived and the other areas ruled by the in society following the Arsacid dynasties outside Parthia introduction of Islam in 650 CE. (such as the Arsacid dynasty of Other celebrations such Gahanbar Armenia and Iberia). There are and Mehragan were eventually specific references to the side-lined or were only followed by celebration of Nowruz during the the Zoroastrians, who carried them. reign of Vologases I (51–78 CE), but It was adopted as the main royal these include no details.Before holiday during the Abbasid period.
In the book Nowruznama drink immortality from the Cup of ("Book of the New Year", which is Jamshid; and keep in solemn trust attributed to Omar Khayyam, the customs of our ancestors, their a well known Persian poet and noble aspirations, fair gestures and mathematician), the exercise of justice and a vivid description of the righteousness. May thy soul celebration in the courts of the flourish; may thy youth be as the Kings of Persia is provided: new-grown grain; may thy horse be “From the era of Kai Khusraw till puissant, victorious; thy sword the days of Yazdegard, last of the bright and deadly against foes; thy pre-Islamic kings of Persia, the hawk swift against its prey; thy royal custom was thus: on the every act straight as the arrow's first day of the New Year, shaft. Go forth from thy rich Now Ruz, the King's first visitor throne, conquer new lands. Honor was the High Mobad of the the craftsman and the sage in equal Zoroastrians, who brought with degree; disdain the acquisition of him as gifts a golden goblet full of wealth. May thy house prosper and wine, a ring, some gold coins, a thy life be long!" fistful of green sprigs of wheat, a Following the demise of the sword, and a bow. In the language Caliphate and the subsequent reof Persia he would then glorify God emergence of Persian dynasties and praise the monarch. This was such as the Samanids and Buyids, the address of the High Mobad to Nowruz was elevated to an even the king : "O Majesty, on this feast more important event. The Buyids of the Equinox, first day of the first revived the ancient traditions of month of the year, seeing that thou Sassanian times and restored many hast freely chosen God and the smaller celebrations that had been Faith of the Ancient ones; may eliminated by the Caliphate. Surush, the Angel-messenger, According to the Syrian historian grant thee wisdom and insight Yaqut al-Hamawi, the Iranian Buyid and sagacity in thy affairs. ruler ʿAżod-od-Dawla (r. 949-83) Live long in praise, be happy and customarily welcomed Nowruz in a fortunate upon thy golden throne, majestic hall,
wherein servants had placed gold and silver plates and vases full of fruit and colorful flowers.The King would sit on the royal throne (masnad), and the court astronomer came forward, kissed the ground, and congratulated him on the arrival of the New Year. The king would then summon musicians and singers, and invited his boon companions. They would gather in their assigned places and enjoy a great festive occasion. Even the Turkic and Mongol invaders did not attempt to abolish Nowruz in favor of any other celebration. Thus, Nowruz remained as the main celebration in the Persian lands by both the officials and the people.
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