Reconstructing the Persian Painting Narrative in Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red

This study aims to discuss and compare the structural and contextual configuration of My name is red and Persian painting. Indeed, it is trying to study the number of influences Persian painting has had on this fictional story. What this essay seeks to address is the appearance of Persian painting at the heart of the narrative, on which Pamuk has based his story's structure. By examining the structure of the novel, one can see that the novel has been developed based on pre-existing materials, just as a Persian painting is based on pre-existing paintings. Therefore, one can say that My Name is red is based on Persian painting and the textual world around it. Studies show that most of the pre-texts used in this novel are visual, thus, at best this structure can be studied and investigated through ekphrasis. Pamuk has incorporated visual pre-texts of Persian paintings through both objective and subjective ekphrasis. Ekphrasis is the most powerful tool that Pamuk has used to create the visual world of his novel. The present study attempts to scrutinize the role of ekphrasis and visual culture in My Name is red. The novel achieves its charm and significance through the detailed descriptions of the visual world of Persian paintings. Therefore, painting has a prominent role in My Name is Red for it represents art, culture and religion of the 16th century Istanbul in great details. As a subfield of visual culture, ekphrasis makes an explicit connection between art and storytelling in My Name is red, therefore the novel can be considered as the most significant ekphrastic literary work of fiction in contemporary world literature. The world of My Name is Red is surrounded by pictures as they are seen everywhere and in every field. The novel is itself a miniature painting created by Pamuk. It pictures every scene, every character and every painting in great details. There is a harmonious relationship between words and images. The writer describes the visual through the verbal. Miniature and portraiture styles of painting are described through the medium of written language. He has written the descriptions and biographies in this novel so that you can associate images similar to painting scenes. In fact, he painted with words. This study identifies and explains many of the objective ekphrasis that this author has described; by bringing the images of these assemblies, we will see how these images are drawn to the word by Pamuk, then we’ll came to the cases where Pamuk's representation of Iranian paintings is in the fictional context of the novel. Orhan Pamuk defining features of the Herat School in the descriptions of the novel are close to many scenes to Persian paintings, as if we are watching familiar scenes of illustrations. Comparing narrative of this novel with paintings refers to the idea of intertextuality and reveals the formal and structural entanglement of the novel, My Name is Red, with Persian painting.