Symmetrical Balance and Coherence in Iranian Music and Visual Arts A Comparative Study

چکیده مقاله

T his article illustrate how symmetry acts as one of the central requirements in constructing both music and visual arts of Iran. This interdisciplinary study sheds light on Iranian aesthetics and the way an artist or composer builds up the formal construction of his or her artistic production. A symmetry analysis of a musical piece will help us to describe the various aspects of symmetry which occur at different organizational levels, ranging from rhythmic repetitiveness, melody, counterpoint, and harmony symmetry, to symmetry of form. As one of the basic laws of nature, symmetry is integrated into all material, intellectual and emotional creations of the human mind. The same is true of all art forms. In the philosophy of Iranian regularity and symmetry are the basis of "good form." Symmetry in music can be studied from visual modelling of musical works and auditory symmetry of elements. While the most popular repetition in Persian visual arts is that of retrograde repetition (mirror reflection), the most common repetitions in Persian music is translational repetition and retrograde repetitions are very rare. A special element of the symmetry of rhythmic structure is the symmetry of the musical meter - the symmetry regularities which appear as the order of accented and unaccented parts of the meter. In all these cases it is reduced to a linear structure within which repetition (translation) and retrograde repetition (mirror reflection) can appear. In Iranian traditional music we rarely come across absolute symmetry while we can find the relative symmetrical repetitions in various ways.
(PDF) Symmetrical Balance and Coherence in Iranian Music and Visual Arts A Comparative Study. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275518442_Symmetrical_Balance_and_Coherence_in_Iranian_Music_and_Visual_Arts_A_Comparative_Study [accessed Sep 26 2018].