Semiotic Criticism of Traditional Art Products in Some Selected Photographs of Qajar-Era

In a significant number of Qajar-era photographs the signs of traditional art are visible. These photographs are as the documents and evidences which demonstrate the presence of the traditional art in the heart of the lives of the people of that time; reading of these artworks gives us considerable information about the role and the position of traditional art in the life style and the social identity of Qajar era; To raise the awareness of this neglected fact seems to be necessary. In this applied research, in which the information has been gathered through library and internet, 11 photos selected from available photo collections have been criticized and analyzed through semiotics and based on the semiotic system of "Charles Sanders Peirce" in order to find the why and how of the presence of traditional art in them.
The result of the semiotic study of the photographs using Peirce's three-way classification of semiotic system, confirms that when the photographs are taken with the aim of introducing the artwork, the presence of traditional art contains an iconic aspect. On the other hand, when photographs were used as a decorative and functional object in court and middle-class life, the presence of traditional art is treated as the symbolic sign. Whilst in photographs the process of traditional art is considered and the art work is not directly present, the presence of traditional art is placed in the category of index signs.