Visual Analysis of Angel Element in the Works of Mahmoud Farshchian

In Iranian painting, the objective core is not a mere imitation or representation of nature, rather it is depicting a symbolic and fantastic relationship between man, nature, and the angelic realm. Meanwhile, Iranian artists have historically valued and believed in the spirits and angels world. An ethereal being that has been adorned heavily throughout the ages. The presence of an angel in a painting is an attempt to materialize a medium, between an unstable world and the observable world, and the Islamic period with its religious stories and narrative works has given a special form to angels. The visual evolution of angels has taken many different shapes and forms, but what is its role in modern times? This study aims to provide an understanding concept of angels as well as a visual and aesthetic perception of them in the artworks of Mahmoud Farshchian. Here, a short introduction to the life of Master Mahmoud Farshchian and the characteristics of his paintings is provided. A number of his painting were selected from among his numerous works, which showed the most visual and formal characteristics and represented a set of paintings in which the drawing of angels could be compared and analyzed. Their visual structure was then investigated with regard to form, composition, color, the place of the subject within the painting, movement, etc. The applied principles and foundations for using this subject, as a prominent form in the works of this artist, were introduced. This article tries to answer this question: what is the formal and visual position of this element, angels, in the works of Farshchian and how is it distinct from former paintings? This is a qualitative study using a descriptive-analytical method. The data was collected through documentary and desk research. The selection and the criterion for classification of painting in different groups were carried out in a way that the selected samples contain the most information regarding the research question. In this approach, instead of content, the focus is on the importance of form as the mental attraction of the artwork. A formalist analysis of an artwork firstly looks at the aesthetic effects of the components of the design. The analysis of the visual and formal structure of Farshchian’s works show a rich visual beauty, which the painter’s capacity for mental representation, and also the expressiveness of the pictures and its harmony with the content. The content and structural study of Mahmoud Farshchian’s works include the form of angels show that in the history of painting this form has mostly not been the core subject of the works. Here, they have been painted independently, and what they share with the works of the past include spiral composition, attention to grid lines and golden divisions, faithfulness to themes and topics and their points of divergence mostly in the method of polishing compare to the past, using acrylic colors, dependence on the traditions of the innovators of painting, and attention to the focus points in the artwork.