نشریه پیکره
پیاپی 34 (زمستان 1402)

 The political/military confrontation between the Sassanids and the Romans, in late ancient times, led to the formation of a kind of propaganda and deterrent art, which can be called "political art". This art served the ruling class of the war or peace parties, creating visual representations in the form of reliefs, coins, triumphal arches, and paintings. Most of these visual works of the Sassanid era and also the Roman Empire were created with the motivation of confrontation with the neighboring country, to show the weakness or promote such a situation. In this article, which was written to identify the importance of the image and the effect of image components on the audience of this type of visual art in the Sasanian period, the following question is addressed: "What are the visual representations of political/military interactions between Sassanids and Romans, the process of formation, and use of these representations"?

 This research is qualitative, and in terms of method, it includes citation studies and field surveys of the authors, which are presented using the method of historical descriptive analysis.

 The studied works showed that their function was to increase the bargaining power in the correspondence and negotiations between the Sassanid Empire and the Roman Empire for propaganda and military deterrence. Using the image as one of the most basic activities during the Cold War between the Sassanids and the Romans has been considered, which sought to persuade the local audience along with legitimizing the Sassanids and justifying the costs of the battle for the Romans.

 The use of visual representations to show off the power of the insider and the humiliation of the defeated enemy has a long history among the Sassanids and Romans, and its manifestations have been clearly seen in the research works.

 Many Iranian carpets with motifs of pre-Islamic mythological kings are available in museums, almost all of which have the same structure. These kings are depicted with their ancient names and with metaphysical beings, which have three levels. First, the position of the king and Farrah Kiani, second, Goblin/Divan place, and third, soldiers' place. In such carpets, the transformation of pre-Islamic metaphysical concepts has led to symbolic forms. This research, which was compiled to identify the mythical kings in the pictorial carpets of Iran, seeks to answer the following questions: "Using the medium function of the carpet, how did the Iranian carpet designers convey the aforementioned triple layering and what are the symbols of protecting the god Mehr and the goddess Nahid from the kings of the Islamic eras in these carpets"?

 This research is qualitative and fundamental. The data is collected from libraries and the National Carpet Museum of Iran using the descriptive-analytical approach.

 The existence of pre-Islamic symbols in combination with the story of Semitic prophets, mixed with the images of the kings of the Islamic era of Iran in motifs such as a luminous sphere behind the throne belonging to the first level, goblins in the middle part, soldiers and ministers in the last level, is one of the unique combinations of Iranian pictorial carpets. In the thought of carpet designers, metaphysical forces like a bridge have provided a means of transferring pre-Islamic concepts to the motifs of Islamic kings.

 The mythology and visual knowledge of the designers of Iranian pictorial carpets have led to transferring metaphysical concepts found in the myths of pre-Islamic kings and Semitic prophets to the motifs of Islamic kings, where the symbol of the goddess Nahid is in the form of a pool of water and the goddess Mehr is in the form of a luminous sphere.

 Coins are one of the essential sources of identifying the history of humanity and important historical documents by studying them from the technical (material, alloy) and content (patterns and themes of coins) perspectives, many aspects of the political, social, artistic, and religious developments of the governments are recovered. In the present study, which was conducted to identify the coins of the Ilkhani period, an attempt was made to describe and analyze the designs and writings of the coins of the "Fin Garden" museum and their relationship with the religion and politics of this period. The following question is addressed: "What is the theme of the Ilkhani coins of the "Fin Garden" museum and their common visual manifestations"?

 The current research is fundamental and data collection was conducted with a library and field method (National Museum of Fin Garden in Kashan) using an analytical-historical approach.

 The findings show that among the Ilkhani coins in the National Museum of Fin Garden in Kashan, the coins belong to three Ilkhani rulers, including "Ghazan Mahmud" (694-703 A.H.), "Oljaitu" (716-703 A.H.), and "Abu Sa'id" (716-736 A.H.), most of which belong to Abu Sa'id and three pieces of coins belong to the princes of the Fatrat period (Mohammed Khan and Anoushirvan). In general, writings related to the Shiite religion (names of the Imams (PBUH)) and Sunnite (names of the Rashidin Caliphs), geometric decorative frames comprising circles, plant motifs, and celestial objects, and motifs using Tamga are among the visual representations used in the Ilkhani coins in the National Museum of Fin Garden in Kashan.

 The writings on the Ilkhani coins in the National Museum of Fin Garden are related to the Shiite religion (the names of the Imams (PBUH)) and Sunnite (names of the Rashidin Caliphs). Decorative geometric frames comprising circles, plant motifs, celestial objects, and motifs using Tamga are among the visual representations used in these coins, which, like other historical periods of Iran, have represented the religion and politics of their era.

 Astronomical instruments were made in different eras to observe the condition of stars, to identify the time, and to predict the future. They were produced for observatories in large dimensions and for scientists in small and portable sizes. With the development of Islam and the need to know the religious times and determine the direction of Qibla, the production of non-observational instruments such as Qibla compass, compass, and sundials flourished with the cooperation of astronomers and metalworking artists. Since most of the studies conducted in this field have been focused on observational instruments, especially astrolabes, in the present study, the study of designs of "non-observational instruments" of the Safavid period was considered. The purpose of this research is to examine the form, type, material, especially motifs, and decorative techniques of non-observational instruments of the Safavid period (due to the remarkable progress of astronomy and related instruments in this period).

 The current research is descriptive-analytical and comparative. The data collection was conducted through library sources and field surveys in museums inside or on the sites of museums outside Iran. In the current research, 35 instruments from the mentioned period have been examined.

 The data of the research indicates that the non-observational astronomical instruments are mostly in four types of celestial spheres, Qibla compass, compass, and sundials, and they are mainly made of brass. In the Safavid period, along with the shapes of constellations and inscriptions, plant motifs, prayers, and Persian poems in Naskh or Nastaliq were used for decoration. Also, the decorative techniques used in the instruments of this period, in addition to carving, were stone loading, silver inlaying, gold inlaying, and perforation.

 Most of the non-observational instruments made in the Safavid period had a personal function and were mostly used to find the way and recognize the direction of the Qibla and to identify the religious times and were also used as gifts. It seems that the reason for the construction and production of these objects in the Safavid period was the significant expansion of commercial and political relations, the increase in travel and the prosperity of communication with Europeans, and the presence of Roman script on some of these items was influenced by these relations.

 The ideological role and function of images in illustrated Shahnamehs, including "Tahmasap Shahnameh", is one of the most widely discussed topics in this valuable work. The hermeneutics of epic texts as a strategic situation for explaining the structure of power in the Safavid era is one of the other significant issues in this field. Some of these images have become more important due to their association with a certain mythological character, and their epic narrative is intertwined with historical events. The narration of " The Conquest of Bahman Castle by Kay Khosrow" is in this area. Therefore, the most important problem of the current research is to explain how power works and is represented in the mentioned painting.

 This research is descriptive-analytical, and the data has been collected by searching library and documentary sources. The method of data analysis is qualitative, considering the narrative and visual content using a critical discourse approach.

 Strategies such as polarity, positive representation of the insider group, and other negative representations have been used to show the superiority of Kay Khosrow" in the painting "The Conquest of Bahman Castle by Kay Khosrow". The reading of the semantic layers of the work concerning the world around the text shows the implication of this work on the historical events surrounding the painting following the attitude and performance of the Safavid kings. It seems that the reproduction of the mythical narrative of the conquest of Bahman Castle, as the most important epic part of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, in the political-cultural context of the Safavid era, was a strategic opportunity to depict royal ideals.

 In the painting "The Conquest of Bahman Castle by Kay Khosrow", a kind of trans-temporal relationship can be seen between the narrative of myths and the historical narrative. The addition of "historical context" to "mythical context" is one of the other notable cases in this area. It seems that the reproduction of the narrative of the conquest of Bahman Castle, as the most important epic part of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, in the political-cultural context of the Safavid era, was a strategic opportunity to depict royal ideals.

 Historical illustration is not a realistic recording of a historical event, but a tool to represent a historical event through visual media. In the visual representation of history, both the details that cannot be expressed verbally are depicted, and the attitude of the societies towards the nature of the historical event is revealed. Studying the works of the European and American historical painting genre from the 18th century to the first decade of the 21st century shows several periods of transition and transformation. These turning points can be recognized in the transition from neoclassicism to modernism and modernism to postmodernism. Therefore, the purpose of the current research is to explain how historical painting changes in the transition from neoclassicism to postmodernism concerning the knowledge of the era. The problem is that the change in society's attitude towards the concept of history has caused a change in the way of visual representation of history in the mentioned periods.

 This research is qualitative and was conducted using a descriptive-analytical method and a historical approach. The data collection method was citation studies. Accordingly, the samples were selected from a specific statistical population that is limited based on the definition of historical painting in the mentioned time frame and representativeness in the desired criteria and were analyzed using an archeological approach. Image archeology is a method of historical analysis with an emphasis on "points of discontinuity" rather than "continuity" and "repetition".

 The analysis showed that the style and content of historical painting have changed in the transition from neoclassicism to modernism and modernism to postmodernism. The depiction of mythological and historical themes related to the past period in the paintings of the late 18th century gave their place to the depiction of contemporary events. In artistic modernism, the styles of depicting history, and in postmodernism, the subject and audience of this genre had fundamental changes. Also, the function of historical painting changed from mythologizing and exaggerating a historical event to normalizing and even challenging it.

 The depiction of history has had a direct relationship with the concept of history in different periods. Since history was considered a recurring cycle before the Enlightenment era, the idealization and mythologizing of the past can also be observed in historical painting. Threshold of the modernity of history was considered the course of events moving towards a certain result. However, with the collapse of the concept of progress, multiple and localized historical narratives became important. The same approach is reflected in the style and theme of a historical painting of these periods.