Iran is home to one of the richest art heritages and handicrafts in world history and distinguished in many disciplines, including architecture, painting, weaving, pottery, calligraphy, metalworking and stone masonry.
Persian handicrafts are rooted in Iranian-Islamic beliefs and reflect the historical beliefs of Iranians.
According to historians, Persians were among the first to use mathematics, geometry, and astronomy in architecture and also have extraordinary skills in making massive domes which can be seen frequently in the structure of bazaars and mosques. Iran, besides being home to a large number of art houses and galleries, also holds one of the largest and valuable jewel collections in the world.   
Here is a brief introduction to Iranian art and handicraft:
Iranian rugs
The art of carpet weaving in Iran dates backs to 2,500 years and is rooted in the culture and customs of its people and their instinctive feelings. Weavers mix elegant patterns with a myriad of colors.
The Iranian carpet is similar to the Persian garden: full of florae, birds and beasts.
The colors are usually extracted from wild flowers, and are rich in colors such as burgundy, navy blue and accents of ivory.
The proto-fabric is often washed in tea to soften the texture, giving it a unique quality. Depending on where the rug is made, patterns and designs vary.
Some rugs such as Gabbeh, and Kilim have variations in their textures and number of knots as well.
Out of about two million Iranians involved in the trade, 1.2 million are weavers who produce the largest amount of hand-woven carpets in the world. Miniature and painting

Oriental historian Basil Gray believes” Iran has offered a particularly unique art to the world which is excellent in its kind”.
Caves in Iran’s Lorestan Province exhibit painted imagery of animals and hunting scenes. Those in Fars Province and Sialk are at least 2500 years old.
Painting in Iran is thought to have reached a peak during the Tamerlane era when outstanding masters such as Kamaleddin Behzad gave birth to a new style of painting.
Qajarid paintings, for instance, are a combination of European influences and Safavid miniature schools of painting such as those introduced by Reza Abbasi.
Masters such as Kamal-ol-Molk further pushed forward the European influence in Iran. It was during the Qajar era when “Teahouse painting” emerged.
Subjects of this style were often religious and nationalist in nature depicting scenes from Shiite history and literary epics like Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh.

Pottery and ceramics

Prominent archeologist Roman Ghirshman said, “The taste and talent of these people [Iranians] can be seen through the designs of their earthenware.”
Of the thousands of archeological sites and historical ruins of Iran, almost every one of them can be found to have been filled, at some point, with earthenware of exceptional quality.
Thousands of unique vessels alone were found in Sialk and Jiroft sites.
The occupation of the potter (kouzehgar) has a special place in Persian literature. 
 Architecture

The Iranian architecture bears ancient Persian traditions and heritage. As Arthur Pope put it, “The meaningful impact of Persian architecture is versatile. Not overwhelming but dignified, magnificent and impressive.”
Iranian architecture displays great variety, both structural and aesthetic, developing gradually and coherently out of prior traditions and experience. Without sudden innovations, and despite the repeated trauma of invasions and cultural shocks, it has achieved an individuality distinct from that of other Muslim countries.
Its paramount virtues are several: a marked feeling for form and scale; structural inventiveness, especially in vault and dome construction; a genius for decoration with a freedom and success not rivaled in any other architecture.
With regard to Persian gardens, its traditional style has influenced the design of gardens from Andalusia to India and beyond. The gardens of Alhambra show the influence of Persian gardens from the Andalusian era in Spain.
Taj Mahal in Agra, India, is one of the largest Persian gardens in the world, which has remained from the era of the Mughal Empire.
Calligraphy
Says writer Will Durant: “Ancient Iranians, with an alphabet of 36 letters, used skins and pen to write instead of earthen tablets.”
Such was the creativity spent on the art of writing. The significance of the art of calligraphy in works of pottery, metalwork and historical buildings is such that they are considered deficient without the calligraphic adorning.
Illuminations, especially in the Qur’an and works such as Shahnameh, Divan-e Hafez, Golestan and Boustan, are recognized as highly invaluable because of their delicate calligraphy alone.
Vast quantities of these are scattered and preserved in museums and private collections worldwide such as the Hermitage Museum of St. Petersburg and Washington’s Freer Gallery of Art among many others.
Tile work
Tilework is a unique feature of the blue mosques of Isfahan. In the old days, Kashan and Tabriz were famous centers of Iranian mosaic and tile industry in the past. Since centuries, Iranian art has developed particular patterns to decorate Iranian crafts. These motifs can be:
- Inspired by ancestral nomad tribes (such as geometrical motifs used in kilims or gabbehs)
- Islam influenced, with an advanced geometrical research
- Oriental based, also found in India or Pakistan
Khatamkari (marquetry)
Delicate and meticulous marquetry has been produced since the Safavid period (1501-1736).
In fact, khatam was so popular in the court that princes learned this technique alongside music and painting.
Khatam means incrustation and Khatamkari refers to incrustation work. This craft consists in the production of incrustation patterns (generally star shaped) with thin sticks of wood (ebony, teak, zizyphus, orange, rose), brass (for golden parts) and camel bones (white parts).
Ivory, gold or silver can also be used for collection objects. Sticks are assembled in triangular beams, themselves assembled and glued in a strict order to create a cylinder 70 cm in diameter, whose cross-section is the main motif: a six-branch star included in a hexagon.
These cylinders are cut into shorter cylinders, and then compressed and dried between two wooden plates, before being sliced for the last time, in 1 mm wide trenches.
These sections are ready to be plated and glued on the object to be decorated, before lacquer finishing. The trench can also be softened through heating in order to wrap around objects.
Many objects can be decorated in this fashion, such as jewelry/decorative boxes, chessboards, pipes, desks, frames or some musical instruments.
Khatam can also be used in Persian miniatures, making it a more attractive work of art.
Based on techniques imported from China and improved by Persian know-how, this craft has existed for more than 700 years and is still practiced in Shiraz and Isfahan.
Relief and sculpture
Relief carving has a history dating back to thousands of years. Elamite reliefs are still to be found in Iran with Persepolis being a hub of relief creations of antiquity.
Minakari (enamel)
Enamel working and decorating metals with colorful and baked coats are one of the distinguished artwork in Isfahan.
Although this course is of abundant use industrially for producing metal and hygienic dishes, it has been paid high attention by painters, goldsmiths and metal engravers since a long time.
Worldwide, it is categorized as follows: enamel painting; charkhaneh or chess-like enamel, and cavity enamel.
Enamel painting is practiced in Isfahan and specimens are kept in the museums of Iran and abroad, indicting that Iranian artists have been interested in this art and used it in their metalwork ever since the rule of Achaemenian and Sassanid dynasties.
Bangles, boxes, water-pipe heads, vases and golden dishes with beautiful paintings in blue and green colors remain from that time. This art stagnated for 50 years due to World War I and the social revolution.
However, this art was fostered in terms of quantity and quality by Master Shokrollah Saniezadeh, the outstanding painter of Isfahan, for 40 years.
Since 1992, this art has begun to thrive after many distinguished artists began working in this field.                                                                                                                                                                        (Source: Iranreview.org)