Iconological Analysis of Golshah’s Portrait in the Illustrated Version of “Varqa wa Golshāh” Based on the Ervin Panofsky Viewpoint

The illustrated version of the epic Varqa wa Golshāh is one of the prominent examples of Seljuk miniature painting (1037–1194). This poem, written by Ayyuqi, a 10th-century Persian poet, is the story of the love between a youth named Varqa and a maiden, Golshah. This epic as a manuscript was illustrated by Mohammad Momen Khoei to portray the important role of the Golshah’s character in advancing the story. Golshah’s important actions include facing off in order to enter the battlefield and fighting against Varqa’s enemies. In this research, the question is how to analyze and interpret Golshah’s role in the painting of “Golshah disguised as a man and exposing her face in front of the kidnapper Rabi” from the iconological point of view. The aim is to read the painting by an iconological method that was theorized by Ervin Panofsky, who is an important philosopher of 20th century. He has identified three stages for an iconological analysis including pre-iconographic description, iconographical analysis, and iconographical level. This research has been carried out based on the analytical-descriptive method by using library and written resources to investigate the characteristics of Golshah’s portrait in the specific above-mentioned painting. The results of this study show that the image of Golshah in this version is a kind of ideal image of a female hero that is rare in Persian painting sources. The image of Golshah has challenged the social and cultural standard of the Seljuk time, due to showing female courage and taking actions on the battlefield as the ideal image of a female hero.