Analyzing the Visual Structure of a Picture in the Shahnamehof Shah Tahmasp From the Purview of Social Semiotics

Shahnameh is one of the most important works of Persian literature that has been illustrated many times by painters throughout history. Iranian painting is also one of the richest semiotic sources of Iranian culture and sometimes, in honor of its powerful supporters, it depicts their images as mythical and legendary characters. This research intends to analyze the narrative, interactive and textual structure of one of the paintings in Shah Tahmasp’s Shahnameh with a social semiotic approach. The selected portray is ‘Night Battle’ in which the main chracter is depicted Keykhosrow who is a legendary king of Iran of Kayanian dynasty and a character in the Shahnameh. The research method in this paper is analytical-descriptive, and the analysis approach is social semiotic of the mentioned image. A comparative study has also been done between the structure of the image and the poem. The main purpose of this study is to explain the characteristics of the representational structure of a painting from this manuscript which was produced to retell the ancient epic of Ferdowsi for the Safavid Iranians and also to commemorate the position of Shah Ismail. Research findings showed that the ideational function in this artwork includes narrative, conceptual as well as a symbolic structure which in conclusion is expressing actions of narrative characters and saliency of the story’s main factor. This study also showed that the image has a higher modality compared to the text. Also in this picture, the figure of Keykhosrow – the mystic king- is placed at the bottom of the composition - in the real point of the picture - which may have been with the aim of imitating him with the historical king - Shah Ismail Safavi.