پژوهشنامه فرهنگستان هنر
پیاپی 17 (تابستان 1398)

The formation of Surrealism roughly coincides with the first successes of silent movies. In cinema, Surrealism underwent changes after the World Wars, and it is evident that like Surrealist filmmakers, Surrealist artists are no longer committed to a full implementation of Surrealism in their works. It is safe to claim there are no recent filmmakers whose oeuvre is entirely within the Surrealist genre. Furthermore, there have been shifts in the overall concept of Surrealism itself towards a more wide-ranging concept. David Lynch is one of the most important filmmakers who has paid attention to Surrealism with many signs in most of his recent work being compatible with Surrealism. He can, therefore, be seen as a follower of Surrealism despite the fact that – typically for him – he has never acknowledged it openly. The present paper studies and analyses Lynch’s films from a Surrealistic point of view. The first part studies the genesis of cinematic Surrealism, followed by a focus on the second-wave Surrealism, or ‘New Surrealism’, as it is called here.  The work of Lynch is then studied using a Surrealist approach, and with an emphasis on technicalities and the views of some critics. The conclusion is a comparison between the new and old Surrealism in cinema.

The documentary Shahrokh narrates the life of Martyr Shahrokh Zarghaam. The present paper intends initially to demonstrate the narrative mechanisms of this documentary. It then moves on to show how the structure of the myth of ‘Horr’ appears in this narrative, and what the structure of this myth is. There are also recurring glances at the question of why the meta-narrator has used this genre (film–documentary) for Shahrokh’s story, and what beliefs he has been trying to induce. In order to answer these questions, it is shown what meaning-making techniques are exploited, and how singular signs are integrated into a unified meaning system; put differently, how the meta-narrator makes the meta-reader believe that the only truth is what he says.

This paper reviews the three key periods of architectural criticism in the West: the emergence of architectural criticism in the Age of Enlightenment, its development, and its flourish and decline. It highlights French art criticism as the birthplace of architectural criticism, initially containing extensive, illustrated descriptions of significant works for students. It then moved on to the proliferation of knowledge and education the public taste as its goals. Over decades, architectural criticism alternated between serving the interests of capitalism and the construction industry and socio-political activism. With the emergence of academic criticism in American universities, architectural criticism fundamentally transformed into a self-referential and fell into decline.

The past periods of art and culture is generally viewed as significantly influenced by art researcherschr('39') literature. This literature can be divided into two groups: books written contemporaneously with works, with their authors being present in the environment, and in touch with the art and the artist on one hand; and books by authors of later periods studying the works from earlier periods. Accordingly, the broad picture of the Qajar period partly owes to the contemporary writers of the time, mainly Europeans, and partly to those of the Pahlavi period onwards including many Iranians. The present article uses library sources and an historical analysis method, with the aim being gathering art researcherschr('39') views on Qajar art in the past 200 years, starting with Sir John Malcom, the Briton who lived in Iran for several years in Fath-Ali Shahchr('39')s time, and ending with Rouin Pakbaz, the author of a recent art encyclopedia. The question is whether there have been any particular developments in researcherschr('39') views in the past two decades, and the results show slow but steady changes, starting from more dismissive views in earlier times, developing into more approving views in more recent years.

The attempt to explain the meaning of art and beauty is the first step in introducing the art which emerged from modernity and non-indigenous paradigms. The academic milieu saw the fine arts as an imported concept resulted from the artist’s creativity, sensibility and individuality. The press tried to explain the rules dominating an art isolated from the society and its needs. In the 1950s and 60s these attempts found a more integrated form, exploited to improve the public perception of modernist art. The explanation of the characteristics of the modern art in the press in those years would improve the public understanding of one of the manifestations of modernism on one hand, and was an attempt to find a market for Iranian modernist paintings and promote favourable views amongst affluent Tehran citizens, familiarising them with goals of the Iranian modern art. The question is, which voices and trends were better represented in the press in those years, and whether a picture can be drawn up of contradictory influential concepts of the cultural milieu of the time, through illustrated press texts.

Sacrifice is one of the fundamental, foremost concepts in civilisations, with countless rituals and mythical narratives dedicated to it. Religions have been one of the most serious contexts for sacrifice, with the story of Abraham’s sacrifice being one of the most important and famous narratives in this field. This narrative has had different manifestations in the three Abrahamian religions, namely, Judaism, Christianism and Islam, which are in turn reflected in each religion’s respective artistic works.  Of a plethora of potentially interesting topics on this subject, the present paper focuses on possible transtextual relationships between the paintings of Rembrandt and Farshchian. Intertextual and then transtextual approaches can decode the relation between these two texts. In order to do so, attempts are made to use intertextuality and metatextuality in Gérard Genette’s macro-theory in transtextuality. As shown, this approach and method will help establish the relation between these paintings without surpassing their text worlds. These relations can also make us conscious of the originality of each work.