فصلنامه کیمیای هنر
پیاپی 49 (زمستان 1402)

Myth, in its nature, have an undeniable relationship with artistic forms. Cassirer considers the structure of myth and art to be very similar, but he believes that the forms that serve the myth become a function, and in this position, such images cannot and should not be analyzed from an aesthetic point of view. Therefore, the question that arises is how to explain the relationship between myth and art in the formation of the final output of the components of mythological consciousness? With this aim, our paper deals with the case analysis of the painting "Salaman and Absal on the Island of Happiness" from Ibrahim Mirza’s Haft awrang and tries to examine Cassirer's opinions about mythological consciousness. Salaman and Absal is a myth that has its roots in Greek civilization. Ibn Sina is the first person who used the secret capabilities of Salaman and Absal, and some thinkers after him, such as Jami discovered the esoteric concepts of this narration and "Mirza Ali Tabrizi" is a painter who has illustrated this story. The research method is comparative-analytical and the library method was used to collect information. Findings show that in the cognitive components of mythic distinction and contrast, mythic causality, mythic perceptual mediators and mythic embodiment in this painting, it is the aesthetic imagination that serves the mythic imagination; But in mythological unity and qualitativeism, the painter's mythological imagination serves his aesthetic imagination. In fact, the output of the components of mythological consciousness is a result of the relationship between art and myth with an emphasis on aesthetic imagination, which is caused by the continuous relationship of image capabilities in the representation of mythological imagination.

In the discourse of Safavid era, we could see a duality-centered and opposition, placing Shiite Safavids in tension with Uzbek Hanafi and Sunni Ottomans. According to the paradigm of cultural semiotics, it is within this opposition and tension that semantics is taken place. Safavid is regarded within the culture, internal actor, and east neighbors or the enemy within no culture, nature or the other. Since the art is regarded such as a pattern –maker system in cultural semiotics, it could be at the service of discourse and ideology, showing this duality-centered and opposition. One of the most important advertising media along this oppositional semantics at Safavid era, is the illustrated manuscript of Tahmasbi Shahnameh. The seven labors of Rostam's story and its illustration by the artists of this period is a remarkable example of duality-centered, created in the discourse atmosphere of Safavid Shiite government against Sunni religion governments of neighborhoods, showing hero and antihero within an oppositional system, and involved of dominant discourse. The aim of the present research is to analyze the oppositional system of Rostam's seven labors miniatures in Tahmasbi Shahnameh by respecting a cultural semiotics pattern within the discourse dominated on that period and, to answer these questions: How an artist has illustrated the oppositional system of hero and antihero in miniatures of Rostam's seven labors in Tahmasbi Shahnameh? To what extent the miniatures have been affected by the oppositional discourse of Shiite and Sunni governments? The results of research indicate that the oppositional system of Safavid discourse and ideology has been established in the cultural-artistic text of this period and the artist utilized metaphorical description at the service of this discourse for marking the oppositional system. The method of research is historical-interpretive and within the miniature readings, descriptive-analytic one. In addition, the method of collecting the data is through library studies.

The interrelation between words and images in creating meaning is one of the important principles of contemporary art. In contemporary art (from 1970 onwards), artists often combine words and images to create complex and multi-layered works that challenge the traditional notions of media and communication. Considering the long history of the coexistence of word and image in the visual arts of Iran and the use of writing and calligraphy in modern Iranian painting, which is known today as one of the characteristics of Iranian painting, The aim of this paper is to explain the role of written signs on the reading of visual text in contemporary Iranian painting. We are concentrated on the question that, how does the presence of words in the frame of the painting affect the meaning and conception of an images? For this purpose, the works of three contemporary Iranian painters who applied different approaches in combining written signs and pictorial signs in their paintings were studied. These painters are: Khosrow Hasanzadeh (b: 1963), Fereydoun Ave (b: 1945), and Davood Zandian (b: 1954). The method of collecting data is documentary and field study, and for semiotic-semantic analysis of selected samples the layered semiotics method was used. The studies show that the presence of written signs inside the frame of the painting in contemporary Iranian art has various functions; from one side, the written signs sometimes limit the implicit meanings of the image by relying on the expressiveness of the speech and facilitate the reading of the visual text; and one the other side, written signs may add to the perceptual dimensions of the work and rejecting the limitations of mere visual perception, they also add to the multiplicity of the semantic implications of the image. By the way, in some cases, the expressive function of writing has been abandoned in favor of the visual function, and verbal signs have turned into visual signs of identity.

The relationship and interaction between Islamic art and mysticism and Sufism are debated by researchers in the field over the past few years. While traditionalists see mystical and nativist meanings behind various forms and types of Islamic art and regard the relationship as something substantive and metaphysical, critics reject it due to inattention to historical facts, and some have even rejected any connection between Islamic art and mysticism. Due to the necessity of taking historical and social approaches to the matter, and the existence of various pieces of evidence indicating the relationship between Islamic art and its artists and Sufism, both viewpoints need revision. In this regard, the present study aimed to look at the causes and motives prompting Iranian artists to be interested in Sufism and create works related to mysticism by considering the artists as tangible components and the main sources of artistic creation (compared to merely metaphysical factors). Therefore, taking basic and qualitative research methodologies, the question was analyzed using historical, descriptive, and analytical methods, and the data were analyzed inductively. The findings showed that the inclination of some Iranian artists to mysticism and Sufism was evident in the crossing between Sharia and Tariqa, and the natural art-mysticism intersection, some Islamic clergymen’s sharia-based prohibitions against some art types, mystics’ tendency to cultivate art, the inspiration of mystical teachings in the creation of artworks, the influence of Sufi rulers and wealthy groups in creating artworks with mystical themes, and the effect of political and social turbulences like wars on making people turn to the followers of Tariqa were six major motives prompting Iranian artists to welcome mystical and Sufist ideas.

In the phenomenology of spirit, under the topic of religion, Hegel makes a brief reference to the art of sculpture in relation to the expression of the divine, but he deals with it in detail in his Lectures on Fine Art. The absolute, which is synonymous with the divine, in both texts, has been able to express self-conscious through sculpture as an art. In this article, an attempt has been made to draw a clear picture of the relationship between Mastership and Servitude to express the divine order in the art of sculpture, based on Hegel's thought. Hegel did not mention art in the chapter of Mastership and Servitude. However, it is possible to create a hermeneutic circle between Mastership and Servitude and the religion chapter in phenomenology of spirit and the Lectures on Fine Art. In this way, a new understanding of the art of sculpture can be achieved, based on the relationship between mastership and Servitude. In order to achieve this goal, this article has been done with the descriptive-analytical approach and the method of collecting information through library sources. The results of this research show that the art of sculpture in every stage of religion and art carries a part of the consciousness of the spirit and the divine order to itself. this consciousness is the inseparable consciousness of God and man, which in Hegelian terms is the same relation between Mastership and Servitude. The self-conscious of the Spirit as the content of the sculpture has precisely influenced its form. The highest level of this artistic self-conscious is in the Greek religion of beauty and its corresponding classical sculpture, in which confrontation, the sublation of Mastership and Servitude leads to the expression of the divine in the form of sculpture art.

Over the years, various visual signs, symbols, and elements formed an organized communication system and became a common language to fulfill communication goals and respond to the needs of society and interpersonal and social interaction. They found a comprehensive and inclusive definition in a wide range of meanings. Expression, with visual language, had such a face and property; therefore, compared to words, it was more universal and could not be framed according to specific instructions or logic due to the dynamic and malleable nature, following dynamic visual grammar. The purpose of this research was to explain the structural and formal relationships of Persian typography based on the principles of visual perception of Gestalt in the posters of the fourth and fifth generations of Iranian graphic designers. In this way, the research question was: To what extent were the Gestalt organizing principles in the typography of the fourth and fifth generation posters, and what were the qualities of the resulting visual effect? The current research was of a qualitative type and addressed the research issue in a descriptive and content analysis manner. Also, the collection of information in the form of library documents, and the method of analysis was based on the principles of visual arts and the rules of visual perception. The results indicated that the three principles of continuity, proximity, and figure-ground from Gestalt principles were used the most in the works of both generations. In this way, "continuity" and "proximity" in the formal elements of letters were often factors to create "figure," in contrast to the "ground," so that writing elements could be used to approach the visual aspect. In the same direction, because of the connected and continuous movements, letter groups found a visual meaning and in the course of visual movements, they created a visual load, a visual emphasis, and guided the eye so that the visual-written forms sometimes found a pictorial character and sometimes conformed to the "principle of closure" to complete a form.