Semiotics of the Sculptures of Rasht City

Art of sculpture making is to meet the needs of the people. Sculptures can be in the form of promoting culture or addressing urban concerns. The sculptures help to identify the city and are displayed in accordance with the general culture of the area; therefore, they convey the cultural concepts of that community and, visually, play the role of beautifying the city. The origins of these concepts go back to the culture and ideology of the peoples of that land; therefore, to achieve these profound cultural concepts, one must decode the symbolic sculptures. To this end, the science of semiotics must be used because through it you can find the statues’ cultural, historical, mystical codes. The sculpture is an esoteric language of architects who crystallize their thoughts in the form of symbolic objects. Sculptures are the elements by which the identity of the city is organized and, consequently, the mental process of the audience, and in addition to the aesthetic function of the social identity of a land. The sculptures, as visual art, in addition to the aesthetic dimension, have the capacity to reflect valuable cultural, mythological historical concepts; semiotic science must be used to obtain these layers. Semiotics is a systematic study of signs to get the meaning. This study benefiting from descriptive-analytical method along with library references aims to study the semiotics of the main squares of Rasht, including Municipality Square, Main Square, Golsar Square, Heshmat Square and Mother Square. In this study, the authors look at the semantics of the sculptures to understand the implicit layers of the symbols and look at their mythological, cultural, historical, and ritual backgrounds. The results show that the statues are not coincidentally created, but rather rooted in the myths and cultures and arts of the people of Guilan, and have always served their mythological, historical, cultural, customs in accordance with the living environment. In the mythical section, there is a horse-fish hybrid statue. Horse is an animal that has always been associated with water as a fertilizing force in myths, and through its mythical function it has always maintained its sanctity among various cultures, including Guilan. In the statue, the horse is combined with fish. Fish is a symbol of life and fertility that complements the horse's sign because both of these are signs of rebirth and in direct relation to water, their identity is formed. In another context there is a horse-fish statue precisely, Neptune. In Greek mythology, Neptune is the god of water and patron of the horse, and fish are always present next to his chariot. In the historical part, the statue of Dr. Heshmat and the statue of Mirza Kouchak Khan Jangali the militant clergyman are seen evolving this heroic pattern with a horse (which symbolizes courage). In general, the historical background of the Guilan people showed their spirit of resistance and warfare, including Gil and Deilam resistance to the Arab invasion. Similarly, the Russian attack on Guilan can be pointed out that at the same time the political movement of the forest movement was formed to defend the land of Guilan. In the cultural section there is also a reference to the culture of reading and studying in Rasht, where the book is on the trunk of the tree. The tree is a symbol of fertility and resurrection and life; precisely the same role that the book plays, because it is the fertilizer of the human spirit, the spirit that drives the human being from the lower world to the upper world. In another context, female sculptures represent Guilan customs and represent a function of traditional society. Some of the statues of the Rasht squares show that women have other abilities, including production, agriculture, etc. in addition to the role of parenting, and a large part of the agricultural workforce plays an effective role. These statues are, in fact, small dimensions of the real issues of the hard working women of Guilan as the independent women who produce and sell products in the fresh food and vegetables Bazaars, and thus, along with men earn their living.