A Semiotic Analysis of a Picture of Sani-ol-Molk's The Thousand and One Nights based on Yuri Lotman

In this article, a semiotic analysis of the manuscript of The Thousand and One Nights, by Abol Hassan Ghaffari (Sani-ol-Molk), of Qajar School is presented. First, the cultural semiology method and next the structural approaches to artistic texts are described. After that, the modern semiology of Yuri Lotman, founder of Moscow-Tartu school, is introduced. Then, using the Nature-Culture contrast pattern, an analytical study of a picture of “ A Goblin accosts Hassan and says: I am a Muslim and your guide”, is presented. This study aims at discovering the factors considered by Sani-ol-Molkin rendering textual signs to pictorial signs, and it seems that the painter has benefited from cultural signs in the production of his work, knowingly. By comparing the pictorial signs with textual signs in this picture, it will become clear that the painter has adopted a symbolic method in going from narrative text to pictorial text in order to help the better recognition of the work by decoding it.