A study of contexts of Anthropomorphic Approaches in Persian Painting

Anthropomorphism, refers to the representation of objects as having human form or traits, is one of the branches of anthropology, which deals with the attribution of human characteristics or behavior to a god, animal, or object. Human attribution to objects or inhuman concepts is one of the historical aspirations of mankind and his manifestations of behavior in the history of human cultural life. Finding the features of anthropomorphism in various areas of human life, including the arts, can be considered as one of the significant communication gateways between man and the world around him. The structure of the human mind in a dual (and sometimes contradictory) approach to nature, first as its origin, which, on the one hand, seeks to take advantage of secondary concepts and avoid primary patterns of nature, and, on the other hand, to re-approach nature and establish a different discourse and based on new experiences, has provided complex backgrounds of intellectual structures and human communication practices while facing the world around us. Anthropomorphism, as a methodological tool that is based on psychology, mythology, religious studies and artistic expression, and reflects the mankind's anthropomorphic manifestations while confronting various areas of life, is regarded as one of the communicative and discursive patterns of man and the universe. The process of anthropomorphic communication structure of the phenomena of the universe, in the form of the creation or the discovery of anthropomorphic notions, stems from a kind of human-mindedness in the human intellectual system, and by considering such a mechanism, it discovers the windows of discourse to the outside world. In the meantime, art in various forms places the tools of this discourse in the hands of mankind. This research has been conducted to achieve a structural pattern to explain the anthropomorphic approach in the aesthetic system of Iranian painting, by analyzing the selected samples of the manuscripts depicted in the history of painting of Iran after Islam and in a historical, descriptive and analytical way, the data have been collected and analyzed through library and online research, and in general, by categorizing anthropomorphic manifestations in the form of religious symbols, animal identification, anthropomorphizing objects, and human beings in mythology, this study explains the mechanisms of anthropomorphism in Iranian painting and addresses the following question: “how and through what qualities does anthropomorphism manifest in the works of Iranian painting?” . In order to answer this question, by studying various versions of paintings and opinions of scholars, as well as studying the literary works and manuscripts related to Iran after Islam, it was concluded that Persian painting, by utilizing the mythological background as well as the oriental view based on the unity of man and nature and by relying on literary and wisdom is known as the heart for the manifestation of anthropomorphism. The present study is a fundamental study based on previous studies in the field of psychology, mythology, religious sociology and the history of painting.