The Pristine Intricate Kinetics of the Persian Revival

Abstract

The book focuses on the formation, agency, and operation of the ‘Persian Revival Movement’ and its relations to and implications of the polities and psychologies of the 19th and early 20th centuries Iran and the broader Persianate world. It sheds light on the mechanisms of relations between the 19th century European gaze and the Zand, Qajar, and Pahlavi Iran, and the Persianate British India. Grigor illustrates the European manners of understanding of the notion of ancient Iran from mid 18th century until the 20th century and how it contributed to the thematics of the so-called ‘Persian Revival style’. She also analyses the agency of the 19th century Parsi community of India in forming certain Persian architectural concepts that became influential in the early 20th century architectural discourse in Iran.Apart from these,The Persian Revival: The Imperialism of the Copy in Iranian and Parsi Architecture emphasises the necessity of rethinking the concept of global art history as a multi-layered system of epistemological-methodological complexity rather than a flat site of homogeneity.