Sensory Perception and Cultural Values in the Art of Pardeh-Xani

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Abstract

Sensory Perception and Cultural Values in the Art of Pardeh-Xani

Asghar Izadi-Jeiran
Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Tehran


Abstract: My anthropological focus is on experience and perception of audience of Pardeh-Xani affected by sensory anthropology in which culture is defined as the ways of sensing the world. The art of Pardeh-Xani seeks to create special sensory experience to make sensory meaning and values. Although The Pardeh is a visual medium, its experience goes beyond of seeing it and although should be heard goes beyond of listening and engaged by tactile sense of audience in the end. Therefore, Pardeh-Xani art is a multisensory art. Pictures and Figures are seen, masculared and touched. Touching of the Pardeh shows a cultural synaesthesia that conveys sensory values and meaning.
This essay based on my experience in one of Pardeh-Xani performance in Tabriz, seeing and picturing of some Pardehs in the Cultural Heritage Organization, and dialogues and older versions of Pardeh-Xani in a documentary film by Hadi Afarideh, Surat-Xani.
Mainstream of the anthropology of art ignored multisensoriality of so-called visual arts and objects. Emergence of anthropology of the senses by pioneering works of David Howes and Constance Classen in early 1990s changed the situation. Sensory anthropologists challenged occularcentrism in the thought of western culture to be applied other cultures. This critique is correct in the case of Pardeh-Xani. The essay divided to three sections. Sensory techniques of Pardeh-kesh include visual pressure, emotional faces, beautiful and ugly faces, serenity and turbulence of figures, and freshness and moisty of Pardeh. Serenity and turbulence of faces and figures cause bodily and muscular effects which shows synaesthesia. Therefore, seeing Pardeh in not seeing icons that described in it but seeing Pardeh is embodiment of it and especially is a form of muscular perception. Serenity and turbulence as visual and muscular perceptions of Pardeh show sensory values of culture: entering heaven is associated with serenity and throw to hell is associated with turbulance.
Ear also engaged in the art of Pardeh-Xani with artistic activity of Pardeh-Xan. The main goal here is the making of a kind of affection in the audience. Pardeh-Xan has especial skill in singing which adapted by age and sex of audience. The sense of specch is more than the sense of hearing: power of words which comes from the mouth of Pardeh-Xan. The sound of pardeh-Xan makes icons more clear and more transparenty. Words concentrated on religious events and ethical advices.
The final phase of Pardeh-Xani in my idea is the most important phase. The audience touches the painting and icons of it. Hand, skin and the body contact with sacred figures to bring some energies to corporeal entity of audience. Touching icons makes a direct and intimate relationship between individual and sacred persons which doesn't happen in the other religious ceremonies of Islam in Iran. Handling icons and then touching the hand to face means entering these energies to the head holes: nose, ear, mouth.


Key Words: Anthropology of the Senses, Pardeh-Xani, Sensory Experience, ُSynaesthesia, Multisensoriality, Touching Pardeh.

Keywords

References

آفریده، هادی (1391) صورت‏خوانی، سی دی.
ایزدی جیران، اصغر (1391) تجسم فرهنگ در هنر: مردم‏نگاری ورنی‏های قره‏داغ آذربایجان، رساله دکتری، دانشگاه تهران.
ایزدی جیران، اصغر (1392الف) «ظهور انسان‏شناسی هنر: فاگ، مان، فورگ و بیبویک»، در مجموعه مقاله‏های نخستین همایش انسان‏شناسی هنر، اصفهان: حوزه هنری، صص: 9-30.
ایزدی جیران، اصغر (1392ب) «شکوفایی انسان‏شناسی هنر در آثار هوارد مورفی»، نقدنامه هنر، 5: 11-32.
بلوکباشی، علی (1375) قهوه‏خانه‏های ایران، تهران: دفتر پژوهش‏های فرهنگی.
بلوکباشی، علی (1391) «پرده‏خوانی: جلوه‏ای از نمایش باورهای مذهبی عامّه»، سخنرانی علمی در پرده‏خوانی و نشست پژوهشی در آئین‏های سوگواری اباعبداله‏الحسین، دانشکده ادبیات و علوم انسانی، دانشگاه شهید بهشتی، 29 آبان (انتشار در anthropology.ir/node/15427).
بیضایی، بهران (1344) نمایش در ایران، تهران: روشنگران.
پاکباز، رویین (1386) دایره‏المعارف هنر، تهران: فرهنگ معاصر.
پیترسون، ساموئل (1367) «تعزیه و هنرهای مربوط به آن»، در تعزیه: آیین و نمایش در ایران، ویراستار پیتر چلکووسکی، ترجمه داوود حاتمی، تهران: سمت.
عناصری، جابر (1366) درآمدی بر نمایش و نیایش در ایران، تهران: جهاد دانشگاهی.
میرفخرایی، مریم (1383) «پرده‏خوانی»، دایره‏المعارف بزرگ اسلامی، تهران: مرکز دایره‏المعارف بزرگ اسلامی.
Bacci, Francesca & Mellon, David (eds) (2011) Art and Senses, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Biebuyck, Daniel (1969) “Introduction”, in Tradition and Creativity in Tribal Art, edited by D. Biebuyck, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 1-23.
Biebuyck, Daniel (1973) Lega Culture: Art, Initiation and Moral Philosophy among a Central African People, Berkley: University of California Press.
Classen, Constance (1990) “Sweet Colors, Fragrant Songs: Sensory Models of the Andes and the Amazon”,  American Ethnologist, 17 (4): 722–735.
Classen, Constance (1993) Worlds of Sense: Exploring the Senses in History and across Cultures, London and New York: Routledge.
Classen, Constance (1997) “Foundations for an Anthropology of the Senses”, International Social Science Journal, 153: 401–412.
Classen, Constance, and David Howes (1996) “Making Sense of Culture: Anthropology as a Sensual Experience”, Etnofoor, 9 (2): 86–96.
Clifford, James, and George Marcus (eds) (1986) Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Forge, Anthony (1966) “Art and Environment in the Sepik”, in, Proceeding of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 1965, pp: 23-31.
Forge, Anthony (1973) “Style and Meaning in Sepik Art”, in Primitive Art and Society, edited by Anthony Forge, London: Oxford University Press, pp: 169-192.
Geertz, Clifford (1972) “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight”, Daedalus, 101 (1): 1-37.
Howes, David (1990) “Controlling Textuality: A Call for a Return to the Senses”, Anthropologica, 32 (1): 55–73.
Howes, David (2003) Sensual Relations: Engaging the Senses in Culture and Social Theory, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
Howes, David (2011) “Hearing Scents, Tasting Sights: Toward a Cross-Cultural Multi-Modal Theory of Aesthetics”, in Art and Senses, edited by F. Bacci & D. Mellon, pp. 161-182, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Howes, David (2014) “The Expanding Field of Sensory Studies”, available at http://www.sensorystudies.org/sensorial-investigations/the-expanding-field-of-sensory-studies
Howes, David (ed) (1991) The Varieties of Sensory Experience: A Sourcebook in the Anthropology of the Senses, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Layton, Robert (1991) The Anthropology of Art, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Morphy, Howard & Perkins, Morgan (2006) “The Anthropology of Art: A Reflection on its History and Contemporary Practice”, in The Anthropology of Art: A Reader, edited by H. Morphy & M. Perkins, Malden: Blackwell, pp. 1-32.
Morphy, Howard (1989) “From Dull to Brilliant: The Aesthetics of Spiritual Power among the Yolngu”, Man, Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 21-40.
Morphy, Howard (1991) Ancestral Connections: Art and Aboriginal System of Knowledge, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Morphy, Howard (2007) Becoming Art: Exploring Cross-Cultural Categories, Oxford: Berg.
O’Hanlon, Michael (1989) Reading the Skin: Adornment, Display and Society among the Wahgi, London: British Museum
Palasmaa, Juhani (1996) The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses, London: Academy Editions
Ricoeur, Paul (1970) “The Model of the Text: Meaningful Action Considered as a Text”, Social Research, 38: 529–562.
Stoller, Paul (1989) The Taste of Ethnographic Things: The Senses in Anthropology, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
 
Sociology of Art and Literature
Volume 6, Issue 1 - Serial Number 1
Spring & Summer
May 2014
Pages 115-138

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics