Ahmad Sanusi Hassan

The impetus behind this s tudy is to discover the aes thetic and semantic patterns of the cypress tree and show how this element has been employed by Iranian artis ts. The ques tion of this research is how a cons tant element (the cypress tree) has been transfigured in different Iranian arts. Four categories of miniature, carpet, textile and architecture decoration. The present research is qualitative in nature and is descriptive-analytic and mainly uses the available published data. Data were analyzed inductively and interpreted in the light of Ges talt theory. Exploratory results reveal that the cypress as a cons tant element in Iranian art has been transfigured differently in different arts. With the aid of Ges talt laws, the visual appearance of the cypress tree was analyzed in the different samples a few of them are presented in the s tudy. It was found that dis tinguishing the cypress element has been made: by highlighting the role of the cypress and reducing the visual significance of the field while increasing the visual emphasis of the cypress. Application of different ges talt laws such as proximity, figure, and ground, similarity, continuity in Persian carpet mos tly makes the cypress at the center of attention and reduces the visual importance of the other elements. In some of the other Persian carpet designs, this element has semantic and extraterres trial concepts and sits is in the center (eg. Mehrabi carpets. In the miniature and fabric textiles, cypress tree has not received the urgent priority and often been on the margins of the image.