مجله رهپویه هنر
پیاپی 1 (زمستان 1397)

The colours on the Islamic Iranian paintings, are the signs of sacred and divinity cosmos in which, the light of God has the main role. The openness of artist’s heart to view the “mundus imaginalis” is the reason of being the colours as above mentioned. The topic of this article is interpretation of semiology of the colour on Islamic Iranian painting based on philosophical foundations. The main purpose of this article is analysis and interpretation of the colour as a symbolic sign (according to pierce concept) on Islamic Iranian painting. Method of this research is based on descriptive research, which provided through library documents. The colours of Islamic Iranian painting are the symbols and codes of divinity cosmos named “mundus Imaginalis”, which signify philosophical and spiritual concepts. The results of this research indicating of the effect of spiritual conception of Islamic mysticism and Farrahi philosophy of ancient Iran, which have caused the artist used spiritual meanings for the colours as the signs of “Mundus Imaginalis”. Colour on Islamic Iranian painting is a symbol and code for mimesis of the truth of the cosmos of light. The hypothesis of this article is based on using Peirce semiology and his definition of symbolic signs which might be interpreted and definned the significations of semiology of colours in Islamic Iranian paintings by referring to the philosophical and gnostic meanings. Semiology is the science in which the main purpose is the cognition and analysis of the signs and symbols. From peirce point of view, anything which determines something else (its interpretant) to refer to an object to which itself refers in the same way, is a sign. The relationship of sign and signification introduce the “Text”. The text as defined, is a recorded message, Any text could be a system of signs.In this article, Islamic Iranian painting considered as a cultural text in which the colours are a system. of sign, bearing with philosophical meanings and significations derived of Islamic Iranian mysticism. Semiological approch of Islamic Iranian painting towards interpration and analysis meanings of the signs of colours could be a new study on relationship between traditional painting art and Science of Semiology. It may cause a Viewer has the same sense as sofi artists had experienced. From this point of view, what the viewer would see intuitively is cosmos named “mundus imaginalis” as seen by artists. the study of data in this research indicating although the colours of Islamic Iranian paintings reflect seemingly the natural colours but artist’s purpose has not been studied the physics of colours, and on the country artist has intended to represent the cosmos of “mundus imaginalis”, in which the colours and images are made of divine light. Persian painter could have concluded that, in order to immortalize the paintings throughout history, have choose imitation of the truth and examples of eternal, because the truth could not be antiquated and lasted for perpetuity. Artist choose gloss, brilliance and purity of colours to being reminiscent of the lights of pure divine.

The script and writing have been among the necessities of daily religious and social life of Muslims and in many verses of the Quran has been explicitly emphasized on them. The Prophet, Muhammad, following the Divine command and understanding the importance of the subject, appointed some people to teach and practice writing and of necessity, self-guided them in understanding the theological virtue, or even the way they took over. Ali, Prophet’s son in law, and a group of trusty companions of Prophet began to write the words of revelation. It is clear that these practitioners have sometimes described some tips about their work. These sayings were gathered in books of Hadith collection by theologians and traditionalists (Muhaddith) and when the work of scribes flourished in the government affairs and among the people of knowledge, and calligraphy techniques emerged, they became popular among calligrapher, especially in Calligraphy Training, and were spread everywhere in the Islamic world until reached to the Iranian calligraphers. In this land, the origin of competent scribes at least from the fourth / tenth century, was established a coherent system of training the artists and artisans from the mid-seventh / thirteenth century and in calligraphy, that was widely used everywhere and every time, was compiled educational treatises and later biographies of calligraphers that have yet been the reference for scholars until now. All the texts related to calligraphy are begun with mentioning some of the sayings of the infallible wisdom and the words of celebrities or aphorisms common among experts and have been narrated from generation to generation. These traditions and sayings still recount, more or less, between calligraphers and sometimes even invoked is written, but apparently no one right or wrong assignment of the speakers, whether or not their infallible, pondered and documented in this study have not been done. The necessary of the attention when became more that know the same words have attributed at different times to different people, while in the original sources have been narrated different narrative of them. After a glance at the formation and spread of writing in the early Islamic period and the entre of religious leaders in this field, in this article has been tried to evaluate the authenticity of the traditions in these treaties through studying the aphorisms and sayings in Persian calligraphy treatises, and referring to reliable sources of Shi’a hadith, and, if possible, extracted the original traditions or samples of them from the original sources and compare them with calligraphers sayings; then has adapted some scattered remarks attributed to scholars in various treatises. It should be noted that advanced search supplier for author to search in Hadith texts has not been the original resources, but has been the software of Jami al-Ahadith produced by Computer Research Center of Islamic Sciences. Also, the base source for study the narratives of calligraphers has been the treatise of Abdallah Sayrafi’s Adab al-Khat, and, because of it is the oldest and most complete treatise on calligraphy, the narratives of other treatises adapted whit it.

The rebellious advent of photography and its consequent theoretical and critical discussions gave rise to new approaches and insights on the concept and nature of art as well as its relationship with the surrounding world and other philosophical discussions. Theorists and their contemporaneous artists have repeatedly questioned, analyzed and described photography as a kind of art within the short time from the invention of this new medium and have either accepted or rejected it. In addition, the nature of art from the very beginning of its development dating back to many years before the birth of photography and its connection with the truth presented a new medium to the philosophers who kept providing innumerable, and sometimes conflicting, interpretations in their treatises following the discovery this connection. Much focus was put on evaluating the missions and discovering the capabilities and boundaries of photography with its cut-off world after several decades when photography had found a relatively stable position among the arts. From the very beginning of its emergence, photography has always promised to depict visible realities and truth and claimed to represent and record them forever. For a long time, this claim was confirmed by the documentary property of the images captured by the camera. However, shortly after the advent of new technologies and using various features to manipulate images, this property confronted with a new challenge. The images had lost their past credibility and their legitimacy had been questioned by its critics more than ever. Gradually, the views of artists and critics have changed, mostly negatively, until they realized that the only mission of a photographer is not recording truth and the nature of this media is much wider and deeper of the old claim relies on visual accuracy of photographs. This article aims to describe and interpret three new and dominant contemporary approaches to photography and its nature. It seeks to review the perspectives of new thinkers such as John Szarkowski, Susan Sontag, and Roland Barthes about photography and its relation to truth and reality, and to analyze their thoughts based on their intellectual backgrounds. It also aims at describing Plato’s view concerning art and its relation to the logical truth discussed in the “Republic” treatise, and finally clarifying the relationship between photography and the ideational truth using a descriptive-analytical method by comparing the attitudes of these three theorists with Plato’s. The required data were collected through library studies and over the Internet and were analyzed qualitatively. This paper has attempted to define and interpret photography as an independent phenomenon based on the perspectives of John Szarkowski, Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag, since these three critics dealt with the same subject in three different contexts and their view points are now considered comprehensive enough to include all theories. This article also aimed to find the similarities and differences in the theories developed by three thinkers in order to achieve a more accurate interpretation and recognition of photography from their perspective.

The focal issue in the current research involves the discussion on the reasons for the absence of landscape depiction in Iranian painting with emphasis on the etymology of the term nature. In Iranian painting unlike western and far eastern examples, never nature and landscapes are the main subjects. Tabi’at (Nature) is an Arabic word bearing various meanings. The scope of the meaning of the word Tabi’at (nature) whether in Persian, Arabic or European languages is so vast and equivocal that in different times, places and discourses it has held wide and diverse meanings. To further clarify the evolutionary meaning of Tabi’at (nature) in the Persian culture and language, at first with a comparative look, the roots of the word was studied in the most comprehensive Persian dictionaries in the recent century such as Nezam, Nafissi, Dehkhoda and the Persian encyclopedia of Mosaheb, Moein, Amid and Sokhan with respect to their historical precedence and secondly its meaning among Islamic scholars and its reflection in Persian poetry. In studying the word Tabi’at (nature) in the Persian language, we realize that not until the last century the said term was synonymous with its English word, but it was perceived as bearing the meaning of essence and substance by literary figures and philosophers. In the post Islam Persian language and its blending with Arabic there is no general term constituting the surrounding world of nature created outside man without his contribution and the word nature with its modern application entered the Iranian language and thoughts in the last century followed by expansion of relations with the west. With that said it can be concluded that since thought is the product of language then one of the main reasons for lack of landscape delineation in Iranian painting results from the absence of the word in the language. On the other hand, with a look at the principles of semiotics and study of the relation between phonology and meaning we understand that the word nature in the Persian language according to Saussure’s theory has a signifier with a long precedence in the Persian literature and philosophy but its signified (meaning) has changed throughout time. In other words, the relation between the ancient signifier and signified has recently received a new meaning for nature synonymous with the surrounding world such as mountains, plains, seas, etc. It can therefore be said that the new meaning that creates a new sign has not been precedent in the Iranian cultural history. Based on this reasoning thinking that Iranian painters would be able to understand the universal and modern concept of nature without a specific lingual signifier is impossible. They unlike their western counterparts were naturally unable to portray the nature that they lacked in their language. This research is conducted by descriptive-analytical method, collection of data through library materials and analysis of the findings by inductive approach.

Tymurid era is one of the most outstanding illumination and miniature painting eras, which has allocated the decoration of the most of the Iranian precious facsimiles, which exist in museums and Baysonqori Shahnameh is the most beautiful facsimile of them.The historical literary importance and aesthetics of this precious facsimile caused to be noticed by inquisitors. In different eras the Shahnames especially Baysonqori Shahnameh were tended in regard to patterns. In addition to 22 beautiful illustrations, this facsimile possesses so beautiful decorations and page layout manner, which are incomparable in its kind. Because of the importance page layout in illumination and signboard (sarloh) affair in this era the harmonization and balance between the colors have been noticed and caused this facsimile to be so brilliant. Nevertheless it has less stood in structural discussion and investigation in the field of illumination and it hasn’t been pointed in specialized manner and sometimes just next to its illustrations almost a passing and descriptive look has been done on its illuminations and a comprehensive analyzation hasn’t been done on it. Therefore, this article basically aims the presentation of the structural features of Harat school’s illumination (in Baysonqori and Tymurid era).The nature of this investigation is descriptive and analytic and the required information has been collected in documentary manner and in some cases it depends on field manner, direct observation and interview with art masters and artists. Finally the analysis of the data has been done on the form, color, composition and general structure of the illuminations of Baysonqori Shahnameh version and the obtained results of this research showed that the illumination of Harat school are more geometrical which forms beautiful nodes from the grips of these drawings in each other. We can see this form in the most of Tymurid era’s facsimiles.The outstanding colors in this literary work are most gold and ultramarine, the other colors next these two colors, such as shangarf, green, orange and white outstand clearly especially green which is holly for ancient Iranians. Generally, in Tymurid era’s illuminations, the field of margin is monochrome and the arabesque and Cathay are in two separate fields, and the importance of arabesque and the pale Cathay design in it is completely obvious.The tables of these pages are so simple and monochrome, in some cases they have been decorated in Tymurid’s style with two colors and simple drawings “beside dots”.Applying seven multiple in the composition of the beginning ornamental fastening such as a seven-petal flower in the middle and seven little circles around it, the number of flower, arabesques and sharafehs are the other outstanding specifications of this Shahnameh.All of these are the multiple pf seven because seven is holy for ancient Iranians (e.g. seven cities of love, seven skies, seven books of Shahnameh …). With all of these specifications, this facsimile can be a pattern due to preservation of the art of illumination and creation of precious facsimiles because of its text, variety in page layout and its valuable illustrations.

Lacquer painting was used to decorate the book covers since the late Timurid period. This art became more prevalent in the Safavid and Zand eras, and reached its peak in the Qajar era. In this manner, Painting was done on objects of pulp (cover, pen box, mirror frame).After painting, the artist covers surface of the work with lacquer. Using this material, the painting colors remained between the layers of oil lacquer, so that the colors become more beautiful over time. The laquer material protected paintings from biological damage, pale coloration and maturation over time. Since Golestan Museum has a rich collection of lacquer works, and these works are one of the most valuable ones of their time, they have various technical and visual characteristics. This study aimed to determine an organization and set for these characteristics, so that it can indicate lacquer painting methods of the Qajar era. Moreover, it was tried to answer these questions: What are the technical and visual characteristics of lacquer works in Golestan Museum? Is it possible to indicate a collection of characteristics of the Qajar lacquer works based on the available works in Golestan Museum? This study used a descriptive-analytical methodology and library data to collect data. Therefore, observation and investigation of the lacquer works were the main incentives of the study. Statistical population under study was all the 39 works in Golestan museum, which were examined by descriptive-analytical approach. The most important results to be mentioned are presented here. Lacquer works of Golestan Palace were mostly made as ornamental .Lacquer painting of the Qajar era flourished well in the second half of the 13th century, and the main patterns used in the works were illumination, Gol o Morgh, landscaping, sculpture, and hunting. Lacquer painting can be divided into two groups in the area of illustration of the human body. In the first period from the beginning of the Qajar dynasty to the early days of the reign of Naser-al-Din Shah, images were designed based on the style of traditional Iranian painting aesthetics accompanied by brief effects of the European painting. The effects of photographic camera and the European realistic style were clearly observed in the works of the next period from the early days of the reign of Naser-al-Din Shah Qajar. Most of the animal’s pattern on the works was related to the bird’s images, and the most important plant patterns were devoted to the flowers’ images. There were some European painting effects in terms of subjects, painting style and composition in most of the works. Landscaping images have been designed to create perspective and background elements smaller than the sculpture. In some of Lacquer’s works, the writings have been used in conjunction with the images, in terms of their composition in harmony with the painting. Most of the writing was don with Nastaliq’s line and for reference. Illustration of man, especially the king, was quite important, and greatness and power of the Qajar court was the main aim of the representation of images.

The art in postmodern period provides a context in which the return to the past and traditions, cultural eclecticism and self-reliance is appreciated. Therefore, it seems that at this time it is possible to predict the artistic infrastructure that, in reliance on past art, in addition to being contemporary, works well in dealing with native and non-native audiences. The present research seeks to answer the question: How can a proper relationship be established between the past illustration tradition and the requirements of the postmodern society, and how to find a way to create a contemporary work using the past tradition (especially painting)? Therefore, in order to achieve this goal, the structural features of persian painting in the works of three artists from Iran, India and Pakistan have been examined. The results of this study have shown that many artists have used persian painting as a suitable tool for expressing their concepts and transforming them into their own goals. Indeed, what is important in the creation of a contemporary art in relation to tradition is the recognition of the capabilities of tradition and the requirements of contemporary art. It seems that there is a meaningful relationship between tradition and contemporaneity, and if traditional roots are associated with the recognition of the artist from his contemporary world, a new tradition-based manifestation will appear in his work. In studying the structural features of persian painting in the works of these artists, all the features of painting including multifaceted space, form simplification, line function, color function, flat coloration, framing, special pictorial painting and repetition of patterns are adapted. But these artists, in dealing with each of these features, have their own expression. Farah Ossouli, used various traditional and classical sources, various motifs of illumination, contemporary poetry, handwritten poems and different tool to draw patterns to grant contemporary expression to his work. Singh’s twins, used social and political issues, their own figure, family and well-known contemporary characters, the drawing of technological examples in the contemporary world, exaggerated use of patterns to approach contemporary expression. Shahzia Sikandar, by chaning the traditional size of painting, change in the media like installation, animation and performance create an innovative traditional contemporary artwork. Therefore, a general conclusion can be made that based on the context of this era and the freedom given to contemporary artists in adapting past traditions and diverse sources and according to the wide capabilities of persian painting, many artists made it an ideal tool for expressing their own ideas and transformed it according to their purpose and expression. Indeed, what is important in the creation of a contemporary work associated with tradition is the recognition of the capabilities of the persian painting and the recognition of the requirements of contemporary art. Therefore, it seems that the main hypothesis of the research is that there is a meaningful relationship between tradition and contemporaneity, and if traditional roots are associated with their interaction with this world, a new manifestation will appear in the artist, which, while understanding his contemporary world Will provide a new horizons based on tradition.