Investigating the Innovation of Qajar Era Artists and Weavers in Continuing Iranian Identity and Culture

During the Qajar dynasty, a kind of transformation took place in the society that caused changes and growth in production, trade, and as a result, innovation in the use and designs of rugs. Among these innovations are pictorial rugs, which, unlike the abstract designs of Iranian rugs, had a theme and were hung on the wall. This study seeks to find out how rug artists and weavers have displayed the components of identity and culture in these pictorial carpets? The main purpose of this study is to find out how weavers and artists' innovation in these rugs continuity the Iranian identity and culture. Therefore, the research method of the present study is descriptive-analytical and the data has been collected from library resources. In this regard, from all the examples in this research, five kingdom themes have been selected and each of them has been studied with Saussure's structuralism analysis approach to examine the Paradigmatic and Syntagmatic axis of pictorial patterns instead of abstract patterns of rugs. Finally, it was concluded that artists and weavers, in addition to the Symbols and signs of the Qajar region, used mythical, historical, and intercultural symbols and replaced them with narrative motifs using different context instead of traditional motifs and accompanying them with the margin and general structure of Iranian rugs have led to the continuation of Iranian identity and culture in this type of rugs, thus innovation in their Paradigmatic and Syntagmatic axis succeeded in continuing the cultural identity in these rugs.