Fresco Art Key Contributor to Traditional Persian Architecture

IFP Editorial Staff

Fresco and mural painting has a long history in Iran, has been of great significance and has contributed to the Persian architecture in different ways.

Methods and materials used in frescoes have been consistent with both the traditional Iranian architecture and the country’s climatic conditions. The wall paintings are dependent on available materials as well as the Iranian architecture, and have been depicted in different ways in different eras.

The Parthian era was one of the epochs when the stucco art was booming, but when paintings and murals were also used to decorate monuments. From the Safavid era onwards, oil paint was used to draw large frescoes and murals. The knowhow to use this method had been adapted from the Europeans.

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However, frescoes do not only refer to figurative paintings in the Persian architecture; rather, frescoes represent the relationship between the wall painting and the environment, architecture and audience as three factors which give value to wall paintings in the Persian architecture.

The status of the fresco art in traditional Iranian architecture has a direct role in visually organizing architectural environments as these paintings in different monuments established a form-based, semantic and conceptual relationship with the surrounding environment as well as the dominant architecture and the audience.

The outstanding frescoes and murals in the traditional Iranian architecture include those on Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque or Ali Qapu Palace as two icons of religious and non-religious frescoes and murals.

The following are images of some other wall paintings on Iranian monuments.