Sepahsalar Mosque

The image of this painting was printed in issue no. 2 of Khoroos Jangi magazine (series 1, 1948), on a page numbered 8.

The Cubist deconstruction of “Sepahsalar Mosque” was achieved by transforming the shapes of the dome and the minaret towers, and by breaking down and rearranging its architectural elements, such as the main entrance, the façades and the porch. By repeating the contour lines of the main building, Ziapour gave the painting different planes, and he had apparently adopted this method to dissolve the space of the mosque and add more to it, so as to reveal both its interior and its exterior. In this work, through the creation of lines and angles, the painting as a whole has been deformed so that the domain of the painting’s power, rather than the concept, is shown; this is an effort in continuation of the endeavours of Ziapour, who had long been trying to build an “Iranian Cubism” from the teachings of André Lhote and the Cubists. Yet showing the mosque in the Cubist manner, with one dome and two minarets, did not find much favour with the traditional viewers of that period, and when, in 1950, Ziapour displayed this work at one of the Apadana group exhibitions, many people were enraged on seeing it.