In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
Among the art-possessing nations of the world, some have a written, codified history of art and some do not. Is it necessary that a history of art must be codified and written down? Can we not have art and artists without having a history of art? What is art history good for? Have we, who still have no complete codified history of art, run into some difficulty?
What is art history? The art history of any nation is an account of the works of art that have come into being in the history of that nation’s life, in the order of their appearance. A hypothetical history of the art of architecture in Iran would be, for instance, an account of the thousands of buildings erected since architecture first appeared in Iran. What is it that makes this history meaningful? The similarities among the works, or the differences between them? Likenesses, or unlikenesses? Certainly the historical line that binds these numerous works together is neither pure difference nor mere similarity; rather, what makes this historical sequence meaningful is similarity accompanied by difference, or difference accompanied by similarity. The similarities between the works of successive periods express the single origin and lineage of art, while their differences indicate the changing of circumstances and the turning of the times. Being of one’s time, or contemporary, is a requirement of art in every age and is not peculiar to the modern period. Art is the historical twin of the human being and, like the human being, belongs to a single race and lineage; but it is subject to the transformations and changes of its age. At times it falls down the slopes of disfigurement and decline, and at times it rises to the heights of authenticity and elevation.
Art history does not alter the reality of art; it neither diminishes nor adds to it. There have been arts over which centuries and millennia have passed without any written account of them being prepared. Our own traditional architecture is likewise among the great arts of an ancient nation which, throughout the whole period of its life, lacked a written, codified history. But the architecture of the modern period — whether in Iran or anywhere else — is incapable of enduring, of being disseminated and of being elevated without a written history codified according to the modern standards of writing the history of art.
The reason the architecture of the modern period gets nowhere without a history of art is that today’s architectural instruction rests on the learning of theory more than on the learning of practice. Day by day the distance between theoretical teaching and work and apprenticeship grows wider, and the notion gains currency that theory can live independently of and without need for practice — that in an environment empty of work, relying on purely intellectual and mental discussion, it can be generative and can even lay the ground for artistic creativity. There are those who, without any acquaintance with artistic “work”, claim to be connoisseurs of art, and who take theory — which is nothing but a reflection of the artistic “work” within intellectual discussion — to be a substitute for art.
If artistic theory distances itself from artistic work and comes to feel independent of it and in no need of it, it gradually becomes hollow itself and hollows out theoretical instruction as well. If theory does not grow out of the substance of works, then — like a self-sown weed which has no nutritional value and may even be poisonous and harmful — it corrupts artistic instruction and renders it worthless. What can preserve theory from becoming corrupt and hollow is the history of art, that is, the documentation of the course by which works have developed.
Theory explains the work of art so that it can be taught and disseminated. Through the theoretical explanation of the work of art, the way is opened for its historical elevation. Art is continually in transformation, and what remains constant within that continual transformation — and, by virtue of remaining constant, can become a support for theory — is the single origin and lineage of art. In other words, the proper business of theory is to address the element of transformation; but transformation acquires meaning only in the light of a single origin and lineage, and the union of authenticity and transformation can be realised only in the “work” of art, and nowhere else.
Modernist art has placed an excessive emphasis on the element of transformation, although it has not denied the constant principle. Indeed, the essence of modernity, and the contradiction concealed within it, is the intensity of its inclination towards the element of transformation — to such a degree that it seems to wish to free itself from the constraint of the constant principle. It is precisely this excessive emphasis on the element of transformation that has given art history and artistic theory an unprecedented importance in the modern period: an emphasis which, while helping theory to grow, has also placed it in danger of tumbling into the trap of self-worship — theory-worship.
In the sixty years that have passed in the life of architectural instruction in our country, it has not only failed to set about filling the great void of the history of the art of architecture of the last hundred years — the age of Iran’s architectural modernity — it has not even taught modern Western architectural theory on the basis of that theory’s own historical documents.
In the next issue of Memar we shall put before our readers a plan for assembling one hundred works of contemporary Iranian architecture, in order to document the course of the development of modern Iranian architecture.
