What and Why of the Impact of Mystical Literature on Iranian Miniature (With a Semiotic Approach)

The gradual Sufi approach to Islam made mystical discourse one of the dominant discourses after the sixth century AH. Mysticism and Sufism have been manifested more than anything else in Persian literature. Persian mystical literature gradually formed the ideology of a large part of the Iranian society and influenced other Iranian arts, including miniature. The study of Iranian miniature, as a cultural-artistic text, leads the audience to a set of symbolic codes that have been formed in the context of Islamic mysticism. In this regard, the aim of the present study is to analyze the relationship between mystical literature and Iranian miniatures. Therefore, through the semiotic approach, the impact of mystical literature on the signifying system of Iranian miniature has been shown. Furthermore, we have examined how characteristics of mystical literature are manifested in the visual signs of the paintings. We have performed a content analysis with an intertextual semiotic approach using a descriptive-comparative method, and explained the relationship between mystical literature and Iranian miniature, by using semiotics, analyzing, and comparing verbal and visual signs in the mystical literature and miniatures. Analysis of visual signs such as perspective, face painting, color, light, framing and imaginary images in Iranian miniatures in this study shows that the significance of these visual signs is about mystical themes such as unity in diversity, the quality of the human soul and spirit, spirituality and the best system that rules the world, the movement of the transcendent man from the material world to the spiritual world, and immortality.