ABSTRACT
While art historians have sufficiently dealt with Safavid tiles in terms of historical context and methods of production, very little has been written on the conception and motivation behind the use of coloured glazes. Despite frequent reference to colour in medieval Islamic texts, these sources have rarely been addressed with consideration to the specific uses of colour in the art itself, or of the role of the tile-maker. This chapter addresses some possible relationships between the colour theories found in contemporaneous philosophical texts and the tiles adorning the 17th-century Shah Mosque in Isfahan, and provides an introduction to the need to broaden the scope of research into Safavid art through the examination of colour theories. It tries to show how colour systems used in tiles seem to have a striking resemblance and connection to mystical and poetical writings on colours, which is indicative of a widespread unification of colour expression in Safavid culture.
