The Image of Contemporary Iranian painting at Post-Islamic Revolution ‎Cultural-Artistic ‎Journals (‎‏1981-2013)

After the triumph of Islamic revolution, the paradigm of modernism, which had previously dominated the Iranian art scene under the Pahlavi regime, underwent a radical shift. Traditional Iranian arts, including Iranian painting (Miniature), were now regarded as emblematic of contemporary Iranian art. The discursive signifiers of revolutionary art were the challenge between Traditional Iranian art and the Western art, as well as the intricate interplay between artistic form and meaning. This revolutionary art endeavored to craft a new form of contemporary Iranian art aligned with Iranian-Islamic culture. Amidst the ongoing discourse between modernist and traditional art, the terms "modernism," "traditionalism," and "neo-traditionalism" surfaced. Simultaneously, the fundamentals of religious arts were elucidated and articulated for artists in response to the exigencies of the contemporary era. Thus, this positioning of religious arts laid the groundworks for art journals and institutions to consider painting as the means of investigating the identity of contemporary art.The concept of "modernism" in traditional painting, miniature in particular, was so legitimized during the post-revolution traditionalism paradigm that it implied the adoption of a contemporary lexicon to interact with the audience of revolutionary art in Iran and the world.Traditionalist publications, conscious of revitalizing Iranian artistic traditions, directed a special spotlight on Iranian painting (miniature). By referencing Islamic painting's cultural and artistic heritage, these magazines sought to formulate a novel language of expression rooted in the revolutionary art movement. Conversely, magazines aligned with "modernism" paradigm considered traditional arts, including Iranian painting, belonging to the glorious past, and not to the contemporary era.This paper aims to describe the concept of contemporary Iranian painting in the contents of 12 specialized artistic or cultural-literary journals: Faslname Honar, Keyhane Farhangi, Soure, Honare Moaser, Honarhaye ‎Tajassomi, Binab, ‎Tandis, Golstane Honar, Adabestane Farhang & Honar, Kelk, ‎Adineh & Donyaye Sokhan. The research endeavors to address the following query: How has the portrayal of contemporary Iranian painting been constructed within post-Islamic revolution cultural-artistic journals?  Reviewing the ‎data from selected texts, this study extracts and analyzes the recurring themes related to Iranian painting across these twelve journals published over approximately three decades (1981-2013) post the Islamic revolution.This issue is important for understanding the current situation of the Iranian painting as a cultural asset and to achieve its contemporary language.In this research, the data has been purposefully collected and analyzed by thematic analysis method through the study of documents that have played a role in the construction of the image of miniature in the Iranian post-revolution art.The theoretical framework of this research draws from theories concerning the contemporaneity of art.  "Contemporary" is a concept contingent upon temporal definitions, each shaping a unique interpretation of contemporaneity. Philosophical perspectives on "contemporaneity" inform the understanding of contemporary miniature painting within the modernity and postmodernity intellectual paradigms.According to Kandinsky, every art work is a child of its "time" and every cultural era creates its own special art which is unrepeatable. From his viewpoint, time and place are considered two outstanding factors in determining the artist's relationship with contemporaneity, which ends to a structure in artistic style to distinguish any art era from other eras, based on the "artist's point of view".The findings of this research underscore that the concern for "identity and contemporaneity" within post-Islamic revolution Iranian painting engaged intellectual discussions in cultural-artistic journals, resulting in a spectrum of perspectives. These viewpoints range from considering contemporary miniature as an eternal art rooted in historical truths to perceiving it as belonging to a bygone civilization incongruent with the "modern" epoch.These Diverse ideas fluctuate from the two points of view; one concerning this art eternal, and the other considering it as dedicated to a vanished civilization. The study unveils the existence of diverse constructions of contemporary Iranian painting across three paradigms: "traditionalism," "neo-traditionalism," and "modernism." The prevalent global language of art and the prevailing zeitgeist influenced the distinct images crafted within each paradigm. While modernism and neo-traditionalism conceive contemporary arts as reflective of the modern era, traditionalist magazines position contemporary miniature painting within the context of globalized contemporary art.The analysis of themes in this article showed that the nature and identity of Iran's contemporary painting and its perspective in 6 specialized art magazines " Faslname Honar, Honare Moaser, Honarhaye ‎Tajassomi, Tandis Golstane Honar,and Adabestane Farhang & Honar" and 6 art-cultural magazines "Keyhane Farhangi, Soure, Binab, Kelk, ‎Adineh and Donyaye Sokhan " is ambiguous.As a result, different ideas of contemporary Iranian painting were constructed out of 3 paradigms: "traditionalism, neo-traditionalism and modernism", which are different in each paradigm according to its view to universal language of art, era and time.In the modernism and neo-traditionalism paradigms, which contemporary arts are "modern-day" arts, it seems that the idea of ​​contemporary miniature was embodied in an image that became homogenous with the dominant art of this era - that is, the modern and postmodern art of the West.Honare Moaser, Honarhaye ‎Tajassomi, Tandis, Adabestane Farhang & Honar, Kelk, ‎Adineh & Donyaye Sokhan journals, by considering the traditional principles of this art, described its contemporaneity in accordance with globalized contemporary art.On the other hand, by adopting a theoretical approach, the magazines inclined to the traditionalism paradigm, based on the belief in eternal time and the stream of the remaining time in various historical eras, including the current era, formed the concept of contemporary miniature in a distinct image. By referring to the trans- temporal truth of miniature and the discovery of its forgotten language, it is possible to create a language could communicate to art of the world based on the "trans temporal-eternal" nature of this art.Faslname Honar, Keyhane Farhangi, Golstane Honar, Soure and Binab journals have been more aligned with this theoretical approach.In a general view, constructing a coherent image of contemporary miniature was not formed in any of the two mentioned approaches. The clash of opinions in this regard did not approach to a specific direction. one reason is the gradual decrease in the publication of specialized non-academic cultural-artistic journals, as a mean for elite thinking to raise fundamental questions concerning the identity of Iranian contemporary art and exploring to find their answers.