Tbilisi in the Memories of the Early Twentieth-Century Persian Artist

Abstract

In the last decades of the nineteenth century, for Iranian artists, especially from Tabriz (Azerbaijan, Iran), Tbilisi was the closest city where they could get acquainted and master the methods and techniques of European academic painting. At that time, a number of artistic societies and private or public art schools operated in Tbilisi. Around 1900, three members of the Arjangi family from Tabriz, who are considered outstanding representatives of modern Iranian painting, received an artistic education in Tbilisi: Seyd Ebrahim Aqa Mir and his sons, Seyd Hosayn Mir Mosavar Arjangi and Seyd Abbas Rasam Arjangi. A number of their works, which were revealed and inventoried by Grigol Beradze, have been preserved in the Oriental Collection of the National Museum of Georgia. Seyd Abbas Rasam Arjangi (1892-1975) arrived in Tbilisi in 1911 and spent four years here. He graduated from the School of Painting and Sculpture. In addition to works of art, Seyd Abbas Rasam left a three-volume collection of poems, as well as an autobiographical Diary of Memories, in which a large section is dedicated to the four years he spent in Tbilisi. In the part of the book about Abbas Rasam’s time in Tbilisi, attention is focused on two main aspects: 1. Study and professional development at the art school and 2. The hard life of the Iranians who were permanently or temporarily staying in Tbilisi during that period, and the socio-political activities of their revolutionary part.