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Iran: 5,000 years of history for an extraordinary civilization and art

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The political tensions of today seem small, when viewed from the top of five thousand years of history, art and culture. The “Epic Iran” exhibition, at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, is a journey through time that leads us to look beyond our limited field of vision, taking us by the hand to the discovery of an extraordinary civilization.

The first writings found in 3,200 BC

From the dawn of civilization, with the first writings found in 3,200 BC, passing through the vast Persian empire of Cyrus and Darius, which at its peak spanned over 5 million square kilometers, from the fall of the empire defeated by Alexander the Great to the Islamic conquest from the Arab armies in 637 AD to the Islamic republic of today, every epoch of Iranian illustrious history has been embellished with artistic, literary and architectural masterpieces.

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Iran, three hundred masterpieces for five thousand years of history

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Three hundred objects of great beauty.

The exhibition is a history lesson narrated through over three hundred objects of great beauty. A tiny, very delicate horse-drawn chariot, in gold, from about 500 BC, like a golden rhyton, a container for drinks in the shape of a winged lion. Jewelery with cloisonné inserts of lapis lazuli and turquoise, demonstrating the great wealth of the empire and the skill of its goldsmiths and craftsmen.A silk drape woven 1,500 years ago with colors that still shine like jewels. Beautifully illustrated, handwritten copies of the Shahnameh, the Book of Kings, written in the early 11th century by the national poet Ferdowsi in Persian, not Arabic. A 14th century Quran written in gold letters.

Until the 19th century, when printing was introduced in Iran, calligraphy was an art practiced alongside illustration. Where it is not possible to transport the masterpieces there are videos of the architecture of Persepolis, reproductions of life-size objects and an innovative and creative use of virtual reality, as in the case of the reconstruction of the famous domes of Isfahan that change color before the eyes of those who looks at them, they transport the viewer for a moment to the magical heart of Iran.

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From the 18th century the kings of the Qajar dynasty, in order to be equal in dignity and grandeur to the Western kings, encouraged the art of royal portraits, in elaborate robes and decorated jewels. At the beginning of the twentieth century with the coup of Reza Shah and the rise of the Pahlavi dynasty, Iran modernizes and opens up to the world, and art adapts, with a great independent cultural ferment alongside works of propaganda for the new regime. The opening stops suddenly with the 1979 revolution and the constitution of the Islamic Republic, which brings Iran back to isolation and stifles the artistic and cultural experimentation of previous decades.

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