Study of One of Sani al-Molk’s One Thousand and One Night Illustrations From Visual Perception Theory of Gestalt

General principles of Gestalt School of Psychology (Unified Whole) are codified by a group of German psychologists in early twentieth century. This approach is based on theories describing how the viewer tend to organize a series of simple visual elements into groups or unified wholes when certain principles are applied, and forms the overall system of visual perception. Development and promotion of such studies in domain of the visual arts is associated with the name of “Rudolf Arnheim”, the art theorist and psychologist (1904-2007). The present article aims to analyze five parts of an illustration of the ninety second night scene from One Thousand and One Night Collection from Sani al-Molk (1813-1886) based on Rudolf Ainheim’s definition of the principle of simplification in “visual perception” theory of Gestalt School. This article is a descriptive analytical study which utilizes the documentary aspects of Sani al-Molk’s illustration aiming to sharpening the contour text structure of “Ali ibn Bokar and Shams al-Nahar”. In addition, by levelling the structure of the five parts of this illustration, the purpose is to study on recognition of the visual components in the embodiment of the same concept. Although this illustration do not seem to be precise enough, the findings show that the viewer, even if not familiar with the story, would be able (by means of mental perceptions) to perceive the whole concept spontaneously, through simplifying the illustration, and reproduce it by means of visual perception of Gestalt, and consequently achieve the main elements of each part of the illustration, and perceive the overall concept of the story. In a broader sense, having compared five parts of this illustration with each other (as a research tool), we can realize Gestalt of a “unified whole”; i.e. the unity of form of the characters, and separation of the main spaces of the story. As a conclusion it seems that this study is significantly aligned with visual perception of Gestalt School in domain of psychology.