Iranian Painting’ Semiosphere in First Pahlavi Era Based on Yuri Lotman’s Theory

The Qajar’s collapse and the rise of Pahlavi was a beginning of a new cultural system in Iran. Modernism and other debates derived from it such as Nationalism, Secularism and Archaism led to lots of cultural transformations that its important part was a tendency towards western culture: But despite of this tendency towards the modernity and western culture, this era was a beginning point for the traditional arts, especially for Iranian paintings. Now the question is which factors, in the Pahlavi’s modern cultural atmosphere, intensified paying attention to Iranian paintings and made a new wave of stylistic transformations in it? with this question and the aim of recognizing the process of renovation and transformation in the First Pahlavian era’s Iranian paintings, this article deals with the factors which influenced on the transformations of the First Pahlavian era’s Iranian paintings. This article, in order to draw a Semiosphere uses the Yuri Lotman’s Semiosphere theory which led to design a pattern of an Iranian painting’s semiosphere with a core which is Iranian painting’s Isfahan school and its margins that are such factors as being affected by the European paintings, Individualism and getting influenced by the dominant semantic horizon of that era. Based on this pattern, First Pahlavian era’s Iranian painters taking Isfahan school as a core tantamount to an original and national element, made a set of transformations in the Iranian paintings of that era which all of them were based on First Pahlavi era’s various cultural debates. Meanwhile this accompaniment of Iranian paintings with the debate of Pahlavi Modernism in the shape of being affected by the Europian painting, Individualism and dominant semantic horizon made so many changes in the form of Iranian paintings which led to the prosperity and legitimacy of this type of art in First Pahlavi era. Iranian Paintings’ semiosphere in Pahlavi era is based on the Safavi era’s Iranian paintings specially based on Reza Abbasi’s works. But in this era this type of Paintings added some new elements to the old one. So, some radical changes have occurred in the revived version of Iranian paintings that couldn’t be seen in the past. The faces of characters have been altered to the Iranian faces instead of Mongolian ones. Under the influence of the Government’s attitude as an anti-religious one, religious themes were not be chosen by artists to be drawn. In the Pahlavi Iranian Paintings, yet the link between literature and Iranian Paintings is seen. The paintings drawn for the Khayyam, Hafiz and Ferdowsi’s poems or verses are the best examples to indicate this link. In this era, artists were under the influence of the western style of paintings and as a result some factors were added to the Iranian Paintings such as Perspective. Presence of tourists and artists’ journeys to foreign countries, specially to Europe, added these events to this traditional art. Besides, there was a real tendency towards Iranian culture, literature and art in Europe which made the Iranian people interested in their culture and art as well. Under the influence the influence of the layers of cultural sphere of the first Pahlavi era the layers of the Iranian paintings of this era were shaped and each factor was derived from the cultural elements of this era. Art in each historical era is fully under the influence of the culture and this fact is undeniable. Cultural atmosphere of the first Pahlavi era was fully under the influence of western Modernism; So, any artistic updates which occurred in this era was under the influence of this factor. Reza shah wanted to build a modern country as a result any type of art produced in this country should have become updated with some new elements which should be added by the artists. In Iranian Paintings, the first on who did this job in first Pahlavi era was Hadi Tajvidi and we can say that he was the founder of this type of Iranian Paintings. But unfortunately, he died soon and his students became the followers of his painting style. They did great. They became famous all over the world, specially in the second Pahlavi era. Via their artistic works, foreigners became interested in this traditional art which belongs to Iran. Iranian Paintings in the first Pahlavi era became revived and has so many fans. This fact was under the influence of cultural atmosphere shaped by Reza shah’s Government, but this couldn’t last too much cause in the second Pahlavi era the cultural elements totally changed and in the cultural sphere of that era the Iranian paintings couldn’t follow the pace of growth started in the first Pahlavi era.