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Notes/Persian/Changing attitudes to art (موضوع چهارم: تغییر نگرش به هنر)
Notes · PersianUK · A-Levels

Changing attitudes to art (موضوع چهارم: تغییر نگرش به هنر)

This topic carries the second sub-theme of Edexcel's fourth theme together with that theme's research subject, and it begins by admitting something about its own place in the scheme. The frozen topic id is political-life-2, but the sub-theme it carries — تغییر نگرش به هنر, changing attitudes to art — is artistic content, not political content. That is not a mistake in the mapping: the specification itself says that Theme 4 covers political culture, meaning war and migration, together with artistic culture, meaning changing approaches to art. One theme, two kinds of culture, and the artistic half lands in a slot named for political life. Saying so in an essay costs a clause and shows you have read the specification rather than a summary of it. The sub-theme's three aspects are صنایع دستی مدرن و باستانی, modern and ancient handicrafts; تأثیر هنر اسلامی, the influence of Islamic art; and توسعه‌ی معماری مدرن, the development of modern architecture. The Theme 4 research subject, جنبه‌های هنر معاصر ایران, aspects of contemporary Iranian art, is treated in the final section: the works and influence of Mohammad Ghaffari, known as Kamal-ol-Molk; the works and artistic importance of the Saqqakhaneh school; and the influence of European art. Theme 4 is set in Iran only.

5 sections·~35 min reading time·4 competencies·Level Foundation 1 · Standard 3 · Advanced 1

T·0666 / 12
Exam profile
AO1 · Understand and respond in writing to spoken Persian about craft, building and paintingAO2 · Understand and respond in writing to written Persian of art-historical and critical registerAO3 · Manipulate Persian accurately, using the vocabulary of art and architecture and complex structuresAO4 · Show knowledge and understanding of, and respond critically to, Iranian art past and present
Operators:شرح دهیدتوضیح دهیدتحلیل کنیدمقایسه کنیدارزیابی کنیداستدلال کنیدنقد کنیدترجمه کنید

basic level

At first-year standard the expectation is accurate naming and accurate description: the Persian names of the main crafts and of the elements of Islamic decoration, one or two named modern buildings, the name Kamal-ol-Molk and what he is known for, and a personal response written in correct Persian.

higher level

The full A-Level expects the naming turned into argument. What does an attitude to art consist of — what is made, what is bought, what is taught, what is preserved? What kind of evidence establishes that one artistic tradition influenced another? On the research subject, which claims are art-historical consensus, which are individual critics' readings, and whose? Answers must attribute every judgement and must use the passive, participles and relative clauses accurately.

Depth

Reading depth: In depth

Text

Text size: Standard

Contents · 5 sections▾
  1. Changing attitudes to art (موضوع چهارم: تغییر نگرش به هنر)
    • 01An artistic sub-theme in a political slot, and what an attitude to art is○
    • 02Handicrafts, modern and ancient (صنایع دستی مدرن و باستانی)◐
    • 03The influence of Islamic art (تأثیر هنر اسلامی)◐
    • 04The development of modern architecture (توسعه‌ی معماری مدرن)◐
    • 05Aspects of contemporary Iranian art — the Theme Four research subject (جنبه‌های هنر معاصر ایران)●
§ 01

An artistic sub-theme in a political slot, and what an attitude to art is#

●○○FoundationLPPearson Edexcel 9PN0 موضوع چهارم — تغییر نگرش به هنرLPPearson Edexcel 9PN0 Paper 1 Section A (translation into English)

Key points

Start with the mapping, because it is genuinely unusual and worth a sentence in an essay. The specification says in so many words that Theme 4 is set in Iran and covers political culture — war and migration — and artistic culture — changing approaches to art — past and present. So a single theme carries both kinds of content, and the second of its two sub-themes is about art. In the frozen topic scheme these notes use, that sub-theme falls into a slot named political-life-2. There is nothing wrong with the mapping, but a candidate who states it — این زیرموضوع با آنکه در بخش سیاسی جای گرفته است، محتوایی هنری دارد — signals immediately that they have read the specification's own description of the theme.
The sub-theme's noun is نگرش, attitude or outlook, and the phrase is تغییر نگرش به هنر, the change of attitude towards art. That means the examinable content is not a survey of Iranian art but an account of how art has been regarded, and the two are different essays. An attitude to art is made up of at least four things and separating them will structure any answer you write here: what gets made, which is a question about production; what gets bought and by whom, which is a question about market and patronage; what gets taught, which is a question about schools and curricula; and what gets preserved, restored and exhibited, which is a question about institutions. Any of the sub-theme's three aspects can be examined through all four.
Build the vocabulary of the field early, because it is unfamiliar and appears in all three papers. The general words: هنر art, هنرمند artist, اثر work, آفرینش creation, سبک style, مکتب school in the sense of a tradition, نمایشگاه exhibition, گالری gallery, موزه museum, مجموعه collection, منتقد critic, نقد criticism. Production and craft: کارگاه workshop, استاد master, شاگرد apprentice, صنعتگر craftsman, دست‌ساز handmade. Judgement: ارزش value, اصالت authenticity, نوآوری innovation, سنت tradition, معاصر contemporary, باستانی ancient. Note the pair سنت and نوآوری in particular: almost every argument in this sub-theme can be stated as a claim about how the two are related.
One methodological warning that applies to all three aspects. In writing about art it is very easy to slide from description into evaluation without noticing, because the vocabulary of art criticism is saturated with judgement — زیبا, ظریف, بی‌نظیر, شگفت‌انگیز. Those are your opinions and should be marked as such. The disciplined pattern is to describe with neutral verbs — این نقش‌مایه در کاشی‌کاری مسجدها تکرار می‌شود, this motif is repeated in the tilework of mosques — and then to evaluate in a separate, marked sentence. Examiners reading for the AO4 grid are looking for justified points of view; an unmarked stream of praise is neither a description nor a justified view.
Worked example

Paper 1 Section A: a paragraph on attitudes to craft into English

Translate into English and justify each choice. «تا چند دهه پیش، بسیاری از خانواده‌ها کارهای دستی را بخشی از زندگی روزمره می‌دانستند، نه کالایی برای نمایش. امروز همان کارها در گالری‌ها عرضه می‌شوند و بهای آن‌ها به شهرت سازنده بستگی دارد. این جابه‌جایی، هم فرصت است و هم خطر.»

  1. 01Sentence one: a past habitual, and the two-object pattern of دانستن

    تا چند دهه پیش، بسیاری از خانواده‌ها کارهای دستی را بخشی از زندگی روزمره می‌دانستند gives: Until a few decades ago, many families regarded handmade work as a part of everyday life. The construction is چیزی را چیزی دانستن, to consider something to be something: را closes the object کارهای دستی and بخشی از زندگی روزمره is the complement, with no را of its own. می‌دانستند is a past continuous with habitual force — used to regard — and a translation using the simple past would lose the habitual sense.

  2. 02Sentence one, the tail: an elliptical contrast

    نه کالایی برای نمایش is not a commodity for display. Persian permits this bare contrastive tail after a complement, with the verb understood; English is comfortable with the same ellipsis, so it can be kept. کالا is a commodity or good, and the indefinite ی on کالایی matters: not a commodity, not the commodity. نمایش is display or exhibition, and choosing display rather than exhibition here keeps the contrast with everyday use sharp.

  3. 03Sentence two: a present passive, and a verb of dependence

    امروز همان کارها در گالری‌ها عرضه می‌شوند و بهای آن‌ها به شهرت سازنده بستگی دارد is Today the same works are offered in galleries and their price depends on the maker's reputation. همان, the same, points back to the previous sentence and must be kept, because the whole paragraph turns on the objects being identical while their situation changes. عرضه شدن is the passive of عرضه کردن, to offer or present. بستگی داشتن به, to depend on, takes به and the preposition is fixed. شهرت سازنده is an ezafe chain.

  4. 04Sentence three: a balanced judgement that must not be unbalanced

    این جابه‌جایی، هم فرصت است و هم خطر is This shift is both an opportunity and a risk. هم ... و هم is both ... and, a correlative pair, and both halves must survive into English; a version reading is an opportunity but also a risk has quietly weighted the sentence, and a version reading is a risk has reversed it. جابه‌جایی is displacement or shift in a neutral, positional sense — a good word, precisely because it is not evaluative — and the writer's evaluation is confined to the balanced pair that follows. That is exactly the discipline this whole topic teaches, visible in a single Persian sentence.

Result: Until a few decades ago, many families regarded handmade work as a part of everyday life, not a commodity for display. Today the same works are offered in galleries and their price depends on the maker's reputation. This shift is both an opportunity and a risk.

Exam focus

  • Say that this artistic sub-theme sits under a theme the specification describes as covering political and artistic culture together. One clause, and it shows real reading.
  • An attitude to art is made, bought, taught and preserved. Four questions, one structure, usable on any of the three aspects.
  • Describe with neutral verbs, then evaluate in a separate marked sentence. Do not let adjectives do the arguing.

Typical mistakes

  • Writing a survey of Iranian art. The sub-theme is about attitudes to art, which is a different essay.
  • Treating the political-life slot as an error to be worked around. The specification itself pairs the two kinds of culture in this theme.
  • Filling a paragraph with evaluative adjectives. They are not evidence and they are not analysis.
  • Using مکتب only for a school building. In this field it means a tradition or movement, and that is the sense you need.

Active revision

در چهار جمله توضیح دهید که «نگرش به هنر» از چه چیزهایی ساخته می‌شود، و برای هر یک از چهار پرسش تولید، خرید، آموزش و نگهداری یک نمونه‌ی ایرانی بیاورید

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Persian (9PN0) specification (Pearson Edexcel)

§ 02

Handicrafts, modern and ancient (صنایع دستی مدرن و باستانی)#

●●○StandardLPPearson Edexcel 9PN0 موضوع چهارم — تغییر نگرش به هنر: صنایع دستی مدرن و باستانیLPPearson Edexcel 9PN0 Paper 2 Section A (translation into Persian)

Key points

صنایع دستی is the fixed term for handicrafts, and Iran's are numerous enough that a candidate should learn a manageable set precisely rather than a long list vaguely. فرش دستباف, hand-woven carpet, is the largest and best documented; the traditional skills of carpet weaving in more than one Iranian region have been inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Alongside it: گلیم, flat-woven rug; خاتم‌کاری, inlaid marquetry; میناکاری, enamel on metal; قلم‌زنی, chased metalwork; سفالگری, pottery; شیشه‌گری, glassmaking; معرق, inlaid woodwork or tile mosaic; and ترمه, a patterned woven textile. Learning where a craft is centred — Isfahan, Kashan, Tabriz, Yazd, Meybod — makes each name into a place you can say something about.
The specification pairs مدرن with باستانی, and the pairing is the argument. A craft can be ancient in technique and modern in use; it can be ancient in name and largely modern in practice; and there are also new crafts, and revivals of old ones by people who did not inherit them. Rather than sorting crafts into two boxes, ask what exactly is being claimed as ancient — the material, the technique, the motif, the workshop structure, or the object's function. In Persian: وقتی می‌گوییم یک صنعت دستی باستانی است، باید روشن کنیم که کدام بخش آن کهن است، ماده، شیوه، نقش یا کاربرد. That single sentence will lift a paragraph out of the tourist brochure register.
The economics of craft are examinable under the attitudes framing and can be described without a single number. Crafts are produced in کارگاه, workshops, often with a استاد and شاگرد structure that is itself a form of teaching; they are sold to local buyers, to visitors and for export; they compete with machine-made substitutes; and their value depends on both material and reputation. The tension worth naming is between craft as living practice and craft as heritage product: a technique that survives only because tourists buy the object has survived in one sense and not in another. That is a real argument and it is made in Persian, by Iranians, about Iranian crafts.
Two practical cautions. Do not claim an age for a technique from memory — قدمت چندهزارساله, a several-thousand-year antiquity, is the kind of phrase that appears in promotional writing and needs attribution before it appears in yours. And do not treat handicraft as unchanging by definition: motifs, dyes, tools and market have all changed, often recently and often documentedly, and a paragraph that describes a craft as untouched by time has made an assertion that a single counter-example will destroy. The safe verb is ادامه یافتن, to continue, rather than بی‌تغییر ماندن, to remain unchanged.
Worked example

Paper 2 Section A: an English paragraph on craft into Persian

Translate into Persian and justify each decision. 'The workshop still trains apprentices in the old way, but the dyes are no longer the ones his grandfather used. He says that the pattern is what must be preserved, and that everything else may change. Not every weaver agrees with him.'

  1. 01Sentence one: a still-true present against a negated present

    کارگاه هنوز شاگردان را به شیوه‌ی قدیم آموزش می‌دهد، اما رنگ‌ها دیگر آن رنگ‌هایی نیستند که پدربزرگش به کار می‌برد. هنوز plus a present is still; دیگر plus a negative is no longer, and the pair carries the sentence's whole contrast. شاگردان را takes را because the apprentices are specific. The relative clause که پدربزرگش به کار می‌برد, that his grandfather used, has a past continuous inside it for a habitual past, and note the possessive suffix ش on پدربزرگ rather than a separate pronoun.

  2. 02Sentence two, first half: a cleft, and an obligation in the passive subjunctive

    او می‌گوید که آنچه باید حفظ شود، نقش است. He says that what must be preserved is the pattern. آنچه, that which, is the compact relative pronoun and it heads the cleft. باید حفظ شود is باید plus a passive subjunctive — must be preserved — and getting the subjunctive right here is the point of the sentence: حفظ می‌شود would say is preserved, a description, where the English says must be, an obligation.

  3. 03Sentence two, second half: permission with a subjunctive

    و هر چیز دیگری می‌تواند تغییر کند. And everything else may change. می‌تواند plus the subjunctive کند is the standard modal construction; the subjunctive is obligatory after می‌تواند and forgetting it is one of the most frequent AO3 accuracy errors at this level. هر چیز دیگری, everything else, takes the indefinite ی on دیگر. Note the deliberate parallel with the previous clause: باید حفظ شود against می‌تواند تغییر کند, obligation against permission, which is what the speaker's whole position amounts to.

  4. 04Sentence three: a partial negative, correctly placed

    همه‌ی بافندگان با او هم‌عقیده نیستند. Persian, like English, places the negative on the verb here, and همه‌ی ... نیستند gives not all, not none — which is exactly the English. A candidate who writes هیچ بافنده‌ای با او هم‌عقیده نیست has said no weaver agrees with him, a much stronger and different claim, and this is a classic quantifier-scope error worth drilling. هم‌عقیده, of the same opinion, is a transparent compound written with a half-space, and بافنده is a weaver, from بافتن.

Result: کارگاه هنوز شاگردان را به شیوه‌ی قدیم آموزش می‌دهد، اما رنگ‌ها دیگر آن رنگ‌هایی نیستند که پدربزرگش به کار می‌برد. او می‌گوید که آنچه باید حفظ شود، نقش است و هر چیز دیگری می‌تواند تغییر کند. همه‌ی بافندگان با او هم‌عقیده نیستند.

Exam focus

  • Learn eight or nine craft names precisely, each with a place. Precision and location beat length every time.
  • When you call something ancient, say which part is ancient: material, technique, motif, workshop or function.
  • Name the tension between living practice and heritage product. It is the strongest available argument in this aspect.

Typical mistakes

  • Claiming a specific antiquity for a technique. Attribute it or leave it out.
  • Writing صنایع دستی as a singular. صنایع is the plural of صنعت and takes plural agreement.
  • Treating a craft as unchanged. Motifs, dyes, tools and markets all change and the claim is easy to disprove.
  • Confusing معرق with میناکاری. One is inlay in wood or tile, the other is enamel on metal.

Active revision

شش صنعت دستی را با مرکز آن‌ها نام ببرید، سپس یکی را برگزینید و در سه جمله بنویسید که کدام بخش آن کهن است، کدام بخش تغییر کرده و بازار امروز آن چگونه است

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages (Department for Education)

§ 03

The influence of Islamic art (تأثیر هنر اسلامی)#

●●○StandardLPPearson Edexcel 9PN0 موضوع چهارم — تغییر نگرش به هنر: تأثیر هنر اسلامیLPPearson Edexcel 9PN0 Paper 1 Section B (reading)

Key points

The elements of the tradition can be named precisely and that precision is what an answer needs. خوشنویسی, calligraphy, with its named scripts — نستعلیق, which developed in the Persianate world and is the script most associated with Persian literary manuscripts; شکسته نستعلیق, its cursive variant; and the older نسخ and ثلث. تذهیب, illumination, the gold and pigment ornament of a manuscript page. نگارگری, often called مینیاتور in English-influenced usage, the tradition of manuscript painting; the art of the miniature has been inscribed on UNESCO's intangible heritage list as a shared tradition of several countries. And in building: کاشی‌کاری tilework, مقرنس the stalactite vaulting of a vault or portal, اسلیمی and ختایی the two families of vegetal ornament, گنبد dome, ایوان the vaulted portal, and محراب the prayer niche.
The word تأثیر, influence, demands the same care it demanded in the music topic, and for the same reason. Where Islamic art and Iranian art meet is not a simple case of one influencing the other: Iran was one of the major places where the artistic vocabulary usually called Islamic was developed, so a good deal of what the phrase names is Iranian in origin as well as in reception. The accurate framing is mutual and long: هنر ایران هم از هنر اسلامی تأثیر گرفته و هم در شکل‌گیری آن سهم داشته است — Iranian art has both been influenced by Islamic art and had a part in its formation. That sentence is more accurate than either simple direction and is a strong thing to be able to write.
The most examinable question in this aspect is what happens when a decorative vocabulary developed for one purpose is used for another. A نستعلیق line composed for a manuscript page appears on a modern canvas; an اسلیمی motif designed for a tiled surface appears on a printed textile or a poster; a مقرنس form appears in a concrete building. Each of those is a real, documented move, and each raises the same question: does the form carry its old meaning with it, acquire a new one, or become ornament without meaning? Iranian critics argue about this, and reporting that argument is far stronger than asserting an answer. It is also the direct bridge into this theme's research subject, where a whole movement did exactly this.
Two cautions on register and accuracy. First, the relationship between Islamic art and figural representation is more complicated than the common summary suggests, and Persian manuscript painting is itself the standing counter-example; avoid flat generalisations about what is or is not depicted, and attribute any you report. Second, do not treat هنر اسلامی as a period that ended. Calligraphy, illumination and tile work are practised now, are taught now, and have contemporary practitioners; writing about the tradition entirely in the past tense is both inaccurate and a lost opportunity, since the survival of a practice is exactly the kind of thing a تغییر نگرش question is asking about.
Worked example

Paper 1 Section B: a reading question on a text about calligraphy

Read and answer in Persian. متن: «برخی از هنرمندان امروز خط نستعلیق را از صفحه‌ی کتاب بیرون آورده و بر بوم برده‌اند. گروهی این کار را ادامه‌ی طبیعی سنت می‌دانند؛ گروهی دیگر می‌گویند که وقتی نوشته دیگر خوانده نمی‌شود، تنها شکل آن باقی می‌ماند و معنا از میان می‌رود.» پرسش الف: این هنرمندان چه کرده‌اند؟ پرسش ب: دو دیدگاه را مقایسه کنید و بگویید بر سر چه چیزی اختلاف دارند.

  1. 01Question (a): a compound perfect with two verbs sharing one auxiliary

    بیرون آورده و بر بوم برده‌اند is a present perfect in which the first participle drops its auxiliary because the two verbs share it — have taken out and brought onto the canvas. That structure is normal Persian and worth recognising, because a reader who does not see it may misread بیرون آورده as a bare participle. The answer: این هنرمندان خط نستعلیق را از صفحه‌ی کتاب به بوم منتقل کرده‌اند. منتقل کردن, to transfer, re-encodes the text's two verbs into one and demonstrates your own Persian.

  2. 02Question (b): find the two positions and the conditional inside the second

    The first group calls it a natural continuation of the tradition — ادامه‌ی طبیعی سنت, using the چیزی را چیزی دانستن pattern again. The second group makes a conditional claim: وقتی نوشته دیگر خوانده نمی‌شود, when the writing is no longer read. That وقتی clause is the hinge. The second group is not saying the work is bad; it is saying that a particular thing happens under a particular condition. A comparison that reports it as simple disapproval has misread the sentence.

  3. 03Write the comparison, naming what each side takes calligraphy to be

    دو گروه بر سر ارزش این آثار اختلاف ندارند، بلکه بر سر آن‌اند که خوشنویسی چیست: گروه نخست آن را پیش از هر چیز شکل می‌داند و بنابراین انتقال آن به بوم را طبیعی می‌شمارد، در حالی که گروه دوم آن را نوشته می‌داند و بنابراین خوانده‌نشدن را از دست رفتن چیزی اساسی می‌بیند. The two groups do not disagree about the value of these works but about what calligraphy is. That is the analytical finding, and everything in it comes from the text.

  4. 04Close with one sentence and stay inside the passage

    بنابراین این اختلاف پیش از آنکه درباره‌ی هنر باشد، درباره‌ی تعریف است. So this disagreement is about a definition before it is about art. پیش از آنکه plus a subjunctive باشد is the standard before it is construction and is a genuine register lift. And note the discipline once more: no outside knowledge about calligraphers has been imported. Section B assesses understanding of the written source, and an answer that stays inside the source while analysing it sharply is exactly what the top band describes.

Result: الف: این هنرمندان خط نستعلیق را از صفحه‌ی کتاب به بوم منتقل کرده‌اند. ب: دو گروه بر سر ارزش این آثار اختلاف ندارند، بلکه بر سر آن‌اند که خوشنویسی چیست: گروه نخست آن را پیش از هر چیز شکل می‌داند و بنابراین انتقال آن را به بوم طبیعی می‌شمارد، در حالی که گروه دوم آن را نوشته می‌داند و بنابراین خوانده‌نشدن را از دست رفتن چیزی اساسی می‌بیند. بنابراین این اختلاف پیش از آنکه درباره‌ی هنر باشد، درباره‌ی تعریف است.

Exam focus

  • Name the scripts and the architectural elements precisely. This aspect rewards accurate vocabulary more than almost any other.
  • Frame the relationship as mutual: Iran received the tradition and helped form it. That is both accurate and impressive.
  • The move of a motif from one medium to another is the aspect's best question. Report the Iranian argument about it.

Typical mistakes

  • Generalising about figural representation. Persian manuscript painting is the standing counter-example; attribute anything you report.
  • Writing about the tradition only in the past tense. Calligraphy and tilework are living practices.
  • Confusing نستعلیق with نسخ. They are different scripts with different histories and uses.
  • Treating Islamic art as something that arrived in Iran from elsewhere. The formation was substantially Iranian too.

Active revision

شش عنصر از این سنت را نام ببرید، سپس یکی را برگزینید و در سه جمله توضیح دهید که وقتی از یک رسانه به رسانه‌ی دیگر منتقل می‌شود چه اتفاقی برای معنای آن می‌افتد

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Persian (9PN0) specification (Pearson Edexcel)

§ 04

The development of modern architecture (توسعه‌ی معماری مدرن)#

●●○StandardLPPearson Edexcel 9PN0 موضوع چهارم — تغییر نگرش به هنر: توسعه‌ی معماری مدرنLPPearson Edexcel 9PN0 Paper 3 Section B (listening, reading and writing)

Key points

Two named buildings will carry most of what you need, and both are securely documented. برج آزادی in Tehran, designed by the architect حسین امانت and completed in 1971, is a monument whose form deliberately combines a modern engineered structure with elements drawn from older Iranian architecture — the pointed vault above all. موزه‌ی هنرهای معاصر تهران, the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, designed by کامران دیبا and opened in 1977, is a modern museum building whose roof lights recall the wind-catchers, بادگیر, of desert architecture and whose plan is organised as a descending spiral. Later, برج میلاد, completed in the two thousands, became the city's most visible tower. Those are dated facts and they can be stated flatly.
The argument this aspect is really about is what happens when an architecture with a very strong historical vocabulary meets modern materials and modern programmes. Iranian architecture has a set of elements developed over centuries for a particular climate and a particular social life: the ایوان, the enclosing courtyard حیاط, the بادگیر wind-catcher, the قنات water channel, thick walls, and inward-facing plans. Concrete, steel, the lift and the air conditioner make none of those necessary. So the question every modern Iranian building answers, deliberately or not, is whether to quote the old vocabulary, to reinterpret it functionally, or to set it aside. Naming those three options is a whole paragraph.
Beyond individual buildings there is the city, and the city is where the attitudes framing bites hardest. شهرسازی, town planning; بافت قدیم, the old fabric of a city; بازسازی, reconstruction; مرمت, restoration; تخریب, demolition; آپارتمان‌سازی, apartment building; حاشیه‌نشینی, informal settlement at the edge. Debates about whether to preserve or replace the older fabric of Iranian cities are conducted publicly and often, and they are debates about attitudes to art as much as about housing. Note also the direct link back to Theme 3: a historic quarter is simultaneously heritage, a tourist attraction, a place people live, and a development site, and those four descriptions pull in different directions.
Two cautions. Do not describe the wind-catcher or the courtyard as merely picturesque; they are climatic devices with a describable function, and describing the function is both more accurate and more impressive than admiring the shape. And be careful with the word مدرن: in architecture it can mean recent, or it can mean belonging to the modern movement of the twentieth century, and those are different claims about different buildings. If you mean the movement, say معماری مدرنیستی or name the period; if you mean recent, say معاصر. Precision about that word will keep an otherwise good paragraph from becoming vague.
Worked example

Paper 3 Section B: two sources on an old city quarter, summarised then judged

The recording carries a conservation architect who says that the old fabric of the quarter should be restored rather than replaced. The written source carries a resident who says that restoration has made the quarter attractive to visitors but expensive for the people who live there. Write 5(a), 5(b) and 5(c) in Persian.

  1. 015(a): summarise, and keep the modal exactly as it is

    در فایل شنیداری، معماری که در کار مرمت است می‌گوید که بافت قدیم این محله را باید مرمت کرد نه آنکه آن را از میان برد. The obligation is باید مرمت کرد, an impersonal باید plus a past stem — one should restore — and reporting it as a description would misstate the source. نه آنکه, rather than that, introduces the rejected alternative and takes a following verb. معماری که در کار مرمت است, an architect who works in restoration, avoids inventing a title for someone the source did not name.

  2. 025(b): summarise the second source, and keep its two halves joined

    در متن نوشتاری، یکی از ساکنان می‌نویسد که مرمت محله را برای بازدیدکنندگان جذاب کرده، اما زندگی در آن را برای خود ساکنان گران‌تر ساخته است. The source makes one claim with two halves and the اما is the point; a summary that reports only the second half turns a nuanced observation into a complaint. Note the two parallel objects both marked with را, and the two perfects کرده and ساخته است sharing one auxiliary in the Persian manner.

  3. 035(c): locate the disagreement, which is about who bears a cost

    دو منبع بر سر ارزش مرمت اختلافی ندارند؛ اختلاف بر سر آن است که هزینه‌ی آن را چه کسی می‌پردازد. The two sources do not disagree about the value of restoration; the disagreement is about who pays its cost. This is a genuinely evaluative finding: it identifies that the architect is answering a question about buildings while the resident is answering a question about people, and that both answers can be correct at once.

  4. 045(c) continued: judge, and name the missing information

    به نظر من سخن ساکن نکته‌ای را روشن می‌کند که در سخن معمار غایب است: بنایی که مرمت می‌شود باید کسی در آن زندگی کند تا زنده بماند. اگر بدانیم که پس از مرمت چند خانوار در محله مانده‌اند، می‌توان درباره‌ی موفقیت این کار داوری کرد. In my view the resident makes clear a point absent from the architect's: a building that is restored needs someone to live in it if it is to stay alive. If we knew how many households remained in the quarter after restoration, we could judge the project's success. Note the relative clause with a resumptive که ... در آن, and the conditional اگر بدانیم with the subjunctive.

Result: 5(a) در فایل شنیداری، معماری که در کار مرمت است می‌گوید که بافت قدیم این محله را باید مرمت کرد نه آنکه آن را از میان برد. 5(b) در متن نوشتاری، یکی از ساکنان می‌نویسد که مرمت، محله را برای بازدیدکنندگان جذاب کرده اما زندگی در آن را برای خود ساکنان گران‌تر ساخته است. 5(c) دو منبع بر سر ارزش مرمت اختلافی ندارند؛ اختلاف بر سر آن است که هزینه‌ی آن را چه کسی می‌پردازد. به نظر من سخن ساکن نکته‌ای را روشن می‌کند که در سخن معمار غایب است: بنایی که مرمت می‌شود باید کسی در آن زندگی کند تا زنده بماند. اگر بدانیم که پس از مرمت چند خانوار در محله مانده‌اند، می‌توان درباره‌ی موفقیت این کار داوری کرد.

Exam focus

  • Two dated buildings, an architect for each, and one formal observation about each. That is enough for a strong paragraph.
  • Quote, reinterpret, or set aside — the three options a modern Iranian building has with the old vocabulary.
  • Distinguish مدرن as recent from مدرن as the twentieth-century movement. They are different claims.

Typical mistakes

  • Describing the بادگیر as decoration. It is a climatic device and its function is the interesting part.
  • Using معاصر and مدرن interchangeably. One means contemporary, the other can mean a specific movement.
  • Discussing buildings without naming architects. A named architect with a dated building is worth several general sentences.
  • Writing معماری مدرن as though modernity in architecture arrived only recently in Iran. Both named buildings are from the nineteen-seventies.

Active revision

دو بنای مدرن ایرانی را با نام معمار و سال آن بنویسید، سپس برای هر کدام مشخص کنید که با واژگان معماری کهن چه کرده است: نقل، بازتفسیر یا کنار گذاشتن

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Persian (9PN0) specification (Pearson Edexcel)

§ 05

Aspects of contemporary Iranian art — the Theme Four research subject (جنبه‌های هنر معاصر ایران)#

●●●AdvancedLPPearson Edexcel 9PN0 موضوع چهارم، موضوع تحقیق — جنبه‌های هنر معاصر ایران: آثار و تأثیر محمد غفاری (کمال‌الملک)؛ آثار و اهمیت هنری سقاخانه؛ تأثیر هنر اروپاییLPPearson Edexcel 9PN0 Paper 1 Section C (writing — research question)

The three research aspects, and what each actually needs

Three aspects, three kinds of evidenceTable with 4 columns and 3 rows, Data: Research aspect · What it needs · Where the evidence is · The characteristic trap; Kamal-ol-Molk · Works and influence · Museum holdings, art histories · Retelling a biography instead; The Saqqakhaneh school · Works and artistic importance · Catalogues, critics' essays · Calling it local-flavoured modernism; European influence · The channel and the mechanism · Schools, biennials, training routes · Assuming influence ran one wayRESEARCH ASPECTWHAT IT NEEDSWHERE THE EVIDENCE ISTHE CHARACTERISTICTRAPKamal-ol-MolkWorks and influenceMuseum holdings, arthistoriesRetelling a biographyinsteadThe Saqqakhaneh schoolWorks and artisticimportanceCatalogues, critics' essaysCalling it local-flavouredmodernismEuropean influenceThe channel and themechanismSchools, biennials, trainingroutesAssuming influence ran oneway
Fig. 1The Theme Four research subject names two specific things and one process, and each of the three needs a different kind of evidence. The trap column matters as much as the evidence column: each of these aspects has one characteristic way of going wrong, and knowing it in advance is cheaper than discovering it in the examination hall. The table is in English because the figure engine has no bidi handling; the Persian names of the aspects are in the prose above.

Key points

This research subject names two specific things, which makes it the most concrete of the four and also the least forgiving: you cannot bluff it. The first aspect is آثار و تأثیر محمد غفاری, known as کمال‌الملک, a painter of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who trained in the Qajar court tradition, travelled and studied in Europe, worked in a naturalistic academic manner, and founded a school of fine arts in Tehran in 1911, مدرسه‌ی صنایع مستظرفه. His influence runs through the generation of Iranian painters trained in or against that school, and the argument about him is precisely about that: whether his naturalism opened Iranian painting to new means or narrowed it away from the older نگارگری tradition. Both positions are held by art historians; report both.
The second aspect is آثار و اهمیت هنری سقاخانه, the works and artistic significance of the Saqqakhaneh school, which the specification dates to the middle decades of the twentieth century. A سقاخانه is a public drinking-water fountain, often with a devotional character, and the name was applied to a group of Iranian artists whose work drew on popular and votive imagery, talismanic forms, numerals, locks and calligraphic elements, and combined them with the means of contemporary painting and sculpture. The naming of the school is generally credited to the critic کریم امامی. Artists usually associated with it include حسین زنده‌رودی and پرویز تناولی, among others. The interesting claim to argue is that Saqqakhaneh was neither a rejection of tradition nor a continuation of it but a use of it.
The third aspect is تأثیر هنر اروپایی, the influence of European art, and it is the one that ties the other two together. European influence in Iranian art has several distinct channels and naming them is the analysis: training abroad, of which Kamal-ol-Molk is the emblem; art schools founded on European models, including the faculty of fine arts at the University of Tehran established in 1940 on a Beaux-Arts pattern; exhibitions and biennials, of which the Tehran Biennial from 1958 is the documented instance; the international art market; and reproduction, since printed images travel where paintings do not. Each channel carries influence differently, and a candidate who distinguishes them is doing genuine art history.
Two rules for this research subject specifically. First, describe works, do not invent them: if you have not seen a painting, do not describe its colours. Museum collections, exhibition catalogues and critics' essays are the right sources, at least two of them in Persian, gathered independently. Second, check your examples against Appendix 1 before you commit, as in every research subject — the rule that the research must not relate to or reference any Paper 2 work has no exception for art. And remember the wider caution: influence is a claim about causation, so name the channel and the evidence rather than asserting that one tradition simply became another.
Worked example

Paper 1 Section C: a research answer on contemporary Iranian art, opened without a fabricated description

Your research subject is جنبه‌های هنر معاصر ایران and your country is Iran. The statement is «هنر معاصر ایران بیش از آنکه ادامه‌ی سنت باشد، پاسخی به آن است.» The unseen text discusses a group of mid-century artists who used popular religious imagery. Write the opening two paragraphs in Persian and account for every move.

  1. 01Read the statement as a comparison, because that is what it is

    بیش از آنکه ... باشد is more than it is, and the whole statement is therefore a claim about relative weight, not an either-or. A candidate who answers as though the choice were between continuation and rejection has answered a simpler question. The opening sentence should name that: این گفته میان دو گزینه انتخاب نمی‌کند، بلکه درباره‌ی وزن آن‌هاست. This statement does not choose between two options but is about their weight. Naming the shape of the question in the first sentence is one of the most reliable ways to demonstrate the focus the AO4 grid asks for.

  2. 02Paragraph one: use the middle-century case as the test

    متن ناخوانده گروهی از هنرمندان میانه‌ی سده‌ی بیستم را توصیف می‌کند که از تصویرهای مردمی و مذهبی بهره گرفتند. اگر آنان سنت را تنها ادامه می‌دادند، بازتولید می‌کردند نه بازخوانی؛ و اگر تنها به آن پاسخ می‌دادند، از آن فاصله می‌گرفتند. If they had merely continued the tradition they would have reproduced it rather than reread it; and if they had merely responded to it they would have moved away from it. The past conditional here — اگر plus a past continuous in both clauses — is the right structure for a counterfactual test, and it turns the statement into something examinable rather than something to agree with.

  3. 03Paragraph two: bring in the research, and name the channel

    پژوهش من نشان داد که این کار در نهادهایی رخ داد که خود از الگوهای اروپایی برآمده بودند: دانشکده‌های هنر و نمایشگاه‌های دوسالانه. بنابراین «پاسخ به سنت» در جایی داده شد که پرسش را وارداتی بودن آن نهادها ساخته بود. My research showed that this happened in institutions that had themselves grown out of European models: art faculties and biennials. So the response to tradition was given in a place where the question had been shaped by those institutions being imported. برآمدن از, to arise from, takes از; the pluperfect برآمده بودند correctly puts the institutions before the works.

  4. 04Close by marking the judgement and stating the limit

    به نظر من گفته‌ی بالا تا اندازه‌ای درست است، اما نه به دلیلی که در نگاه نخست به نظر می‌رسد: پاسخ بودن این هنر نه از دوری آن از سنت، بلکه از تازگی جایی می‌آید که در آن ساخته شد. In my view the statement is true to an extent, but not for the reason it first appears: the responsive quality of this art comes not from its distance from tradition but from the newness of the place in which it was made. Note that nothing in these two paragraphs describes a painting. The whole argument is built from institutions and dates, which are checkable, rather than from invented visual description, which is not.

Result: این گفته میان دو گزینه انتخاب نمی‌کند، بلکه درباره‌ی وزن آن‌هاست. متن ناخوانده گروهی از هنرمندان میانه‌ی سده‌ی بیستم را توصیف می‌کند که از تصویرهای مردمی و مذهبی بهره گرفتند؛ اگر آنان سنت را تنها ادامه می‌دادند، بازتولید می‌کردند نه بازخوانی، و اگر تنها به آن پاسخ می‌دادند، از آن فاصله می‌گرفتند. پژوهش من نشان داد که این کار در نهادهایی رخ داد که خود از الگوهای اروپایی برآمده بودند: دانشکده‌های هنر و نمایشگاه‌های دوسالانه. به نظر من گفته‌ی بالا تا اندازه‌ای درست است، اما نه به دلیلی که در نگاه نخست به نظر می‌رسد: پاسخ بودن این هنر نه از دوری آن از سنت، بلکه از تازگی جایی می‌آید که در آن ساخته شد.

Exam focus

  • Two named things and one named channel-set. This research subject rewards precision and punishes vagueness more than any other.
  • Kamal-ol-Molk's school in 1911; the faculty of fine arts in 1940; the Tehran Biennial from 1958. Three dates, three channels of European influence.
  • Describe only works you have actually seen reproduced. Do not invent a canvas.

Typical mistakes

  • Treating Kamal-ol-Molk as uncontroversially the father of modern Iranian painting. That is one position among several and should be attributed.
  • Describing Saqqakhaneh as simply modernism with local motifs. The school's own claim is more interesting and the phrase begs the question.
  • Presenting European influence as a single event. It arrived through training, schools, exhibitions, market and reproduction, and those differ.
  • Writing کمال الملک with a space. It is کمال‌الملک, joined with a half-space.

Active revision

برای هر یک از سه جنبه‌ی این موضوع تحقیق یک پرسش بنویسید که با دو منبع فارسی پاسخ‌پذیر باشد؛ سپس زیر هر پرسش نام نوع منبعی را که به آن نیاز دارید بنویسید و بررسی کنید که هیچ‌کدام با آثار برگه‌ی دوم شما برخورد نکند

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Persian (9PN0) specification (Pearson Edexcel)

Contents

Section -- / 05

    • 01An artistic sub-theme in a political slot, and what an attitude to art is○
    • 02Handicrafts, modern and ancient (صنایع دستی مدرن و باستانی)◐
    • 03The influence of Islamic art (تأثیر هنر اسلامی)◐
    • 04The development of modern architecture (توسعه‌ی معماری مدرن)◐
    • 05Aspects of contemporary Iranian art — the Theme Four research subject (جنبه‌های هنر معاصر ایران)●

0/5 Read

From notes into training

Changing attitudes to art (موضوع چهارم: تغییر نگرش به هنر)

Reinforce this topic with matching tasks from the question bank.

~35
min
4
Competencies
Practise

References & sources

Sources

Pearson Edexcel

  • Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Persian (9PN0) specification

Department for Education

  • GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

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