In Search of Roots By Aydin Aghdashlou

Lithography is one of the late 18th century European inventions. Prior to that time printing of pictures was done by engraving on wood or metal. This invention brought forth a revolution in printing and indirectly in the art of graphic design. 

Lithography was first initiated by the German Aloys Senefelder in 1798 B.C. in Bavaria and after that throughout the 19th century it became a widespread and popular technique that drew the attention of artists. Painters shifted from engraving on metal to lithography because they could more delicately and completely work on shading. Many early 19th century great artists such as Francisco de Goya and Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres also turned to this technique and from the second half of the 19th century colored lithography with several stones and prints became popular. Great impressionist artists including Henri de Toulouse Lautrec and Edouard Manet, Paul Gauguin and others greatly welcomes it.In the 20th century lithography was replaced with more advanced printing techniques but it was still used by artists in their original artworks in limited numbers titled as graphic works displayed in museums which is still pretty much current.

The print industry and engraving on wood and metal in Iran dates back to the 17th century. The first print shop was set up in Isfahan at that time by Christians and copies of the Holy Book were typeset and printed. Iranians although being familiar did not show much interest and although great painters such as Reza Abbasi used engraved examples as models but use of print was delayed until 200 years later and with the opening of the first print shop by Abbas Mirza Qajar in the first half of the 19th century, Iranians practically became familiar with the technique of printing. It was in the same printing shop that the first religious books such as Zad al-Maad were typeset and printed.

Lithography however, later on was extensively used during the time of Mohammad Shah Qajar and around 1837 in a newspaper that Mirza Saleh Shirazi published. Gradually reputable Iranian artists printed their works in various newspapers that became the first examples of Iranian printed graphic illustrations.

Lithography in Iran has a long precedence and it was almost used for seventy years in various newspapers, announcements, books and texts. Some of the most prominent calligraphers of the Qajar era and especially Mirza Reza Kalhor used lithography technique to print their works. From the second decade of the 20th century, lithography gradually became obsolete in Iran and it only continued to be used in Europe and America in their important print works. With the founding of the Faculty of Fine Arts in the University of Tehran, every now and then desolate lithography workshops were set up that did not last long and the stones and tools were just stored and deteriorated in them.

The interest and attention to illustrations in lithographic books in Iran in recent years is an indication of the deep curiosity and extensive search of a generation who has aimed to find and reconstruct its roots searching every remote corner to draw ever more completely the course of evolution of its past culture.

In conclusion, I must add that contrary to books and merited and detailed researches that have been published on Qajar era photography, lithography and review of its status and functions in Iran has remained quite obsolete and unknown. Except brief mentions in dissertations placed in abandoned libraries of art departments, there is not a significant resource available for those interested in research and this is a great unkindness towards one of the most successful periods of Iranians graphic design art; a period in which proper blending and balance occurred between tradition and modernism and it can be a significant model for contemporary Iranian graphic designers still facing the problems and issues resulting from mixing tradition with modernism and who are experiencing different resolutions.