Aesthetic Elements in Qajar Popular Wall Paintings of the Prophet's Mi’raj (In Comparison with Those in Prints, Images of Lithography and Miniature)

Qajar wall painting includes different fields and works dispersed in various locations such as royal buildings, private houses, public places and holy shrines under the dynastic rubrics, epic, sensual and religious contexts. Religious murals in shrines and tombs, especially those depicting Prophet Mohammad's Mi’raj are among the ones which could be seen in such places.
Mi’raj has been described as both a physical and spiritual journey. A brief sketch of the story is in surah al-Isra of the Quran and other details come from the hadith, which are collections of the reports, teachings, deeds and sayings of Muhammad. In the Isra, Muhammad traveled on the steed Buraq to "the farthest mosque". Traditionally, later Muslims identified the mosque as a location in the physical world, the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. At the mosque, Muhammad led other prophets in prayer. He then ascended to heaven in the Mi'raj journey where Prophet Muhammad spoke to God. The remembrance of this journey is one of the most significant events in the Islamic calendar. Due to the significance of this event, it has been manifested in the realm of art from days of yore.
Although we can find different stages of this historical-religious event in the works of lithography and miniature, not many of them have been studied in the field of wall painting and popular arts. Having
examined such works of art, some questions are proposed as follows: firstly, what are the structural and aesthetic elements in these religious wall paintings? Secondly, how these elements are depicted and what similarities and differences do they share with works of lithography and miniature? The results of this research done in analytic and comparative methodology reveal that these wall paintings are more, in term of quantity, distributed in northern provinces of Iran and the scenes related to "visiting the lion" prevail as a result of Shiite beliefs. But the illustrated scenes and stages in lithography and miniature are more diverse including different events. Of other things we should note and compare in here are the execution and decoration of works besides the style of depicting the elements, their colors and sizes as well as the background of each medium and some other slight differences.
As to the differences of artworks in these three artistic media, we should mention that in works of miniature and lithography, there are more stages and episodes to be seen. Furthermore, due to the technical and expressive capacities of each medium, there are more figures and details in miniature in compare to those of lithography and on the other hand, more ones in lithography than wall painting. But as to the similarities, there some points to be noted. The central position of the Prophet and his praising of God during the journey of Mi’raj, the adaptability of the clothes and other elements with the features of the era in which paintings have been executed, and lack of perspective as well as depiction of the climax of the story with somewhat epic aspects are all among the similarities in each of the works of the three fields.