In addition to its role in mysticism and especially the Islamic mysticism of Iran, the Imaginal World has important implications in Islamic philosophy. Considering that the most important feature of the Imaginal World is its inbetween role, this world has overcome some of the ambiguities and problems of Peripatetic philosophy and theology. But it seems that the necessities of presenting the Imaginal World in Islamic philosophy and mysticism are not reliable as the source of Persian traditional painting. Introducing the Imaginal World as a model and source of inspiration is a reason for the special space of Iranian traditional painting; however this opinion not only respond to many of the doubts and ambiguities in this issue, but also, it seems that many of the features of Iranian traditional painting are also ignored, which is associated with history and its visual media. The extension of this view by Traditionalists and some Orientalists can be reconciled with the theory of hidden Orientalism. Nevertheless, it seems that Persian traditional painting can be considered as a part of pictorial arts which is influenced by formal qualities and its cultural and social traditions instead of Imaginal World.

Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh is one of the greatest epic poems in the world. The outstanding values of this poem have not been hidden from the painters of different periods and they have drawn illustrations for many stories of Shahnameh. The combat of Rostam and Sohrab has been one of the most interesting themes for these painters. Due to the existence of different layers of meaning in Shahnameh, Shahnameh painting also provides very valuable raw materials for identifying signs and codes. In fact, the science of semiotics provides us with the ability to identify and reread these drawings to better understand this outstanding work. Considering the importance of characterization in the story of Rostam and Sohrab and the design of icons which are in appropriate accordance to the prominent characters in paintings, this study tries to semiotically analyze the most important character of Shahnameh, namely Rostam in the paintings of different periods. Since in Pierce’s semiotic method a sign is treated as having three dimensions and the role of the interpreter and his perception of “interpretation” is given importance, 15 drawings from this section of Shahnameh are selected and analyzed from the point of view of this thinker. This research is fundamental in terms of its goal; has a descriptive-analytical nature and lean on field and documentary methods for collecting data. At the end, it is concluded that painters’ connection with the subject of the story and the way they depict them have to do with hearing the story, receiving its linguistic-spoken messages, reading the text of the story through linguistic-textual messages, and seeing pre-existing images. The final outcome is formed and transferred to the audience with the intervention of the individual painter’s thought and creativity and the use of visual elements (both text and image) in the form of drawings. Generally, in order to introduce Rustam to their audience, painters have often used signs with a conventional relationship in the symbolic aspect and cause and effect relationship in the index aspect.

When treated like texts with their own visual language, illustrations from the Shiraz School of miniature are a mixture of the syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations of signs. Syntagmatic relations reveal the different ways the elements of a text are connected, while paradigmatic relations identify the sets of signifiers that signify the content of the text, dealing with intratextual and intertextual relations respectively. The resulting correspondence eventually shapes the structure of the illustrations, which in turn gives meaning to the signs therein. Aiming to analyze the types of those relations and their transformations, this research tries to enhance how the narrative of these illustrations, as visual media, is perceived and recalled. Reviewing the existing literature, this descriptive/analytical research concludes that Shiraz School miniatures featured different types of syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations and transformations.

The events of the Prophet Muhammad’s life are one of the most important issues considered by painters in different eras, which many examples are in the manuscripts of Mongolian Ilkhans. This study includes the investigation of Ilkhani images related to prophet’s life based on Iconography method. Therefore, three questions formed the purpose of the study (1. Which characteristics have been basically utilized to describe the prophet pictures in Ilkhani period? 2. How is the evolutionary religious icons’ trend during the Ilkhani period? 3. What are the factors affecting on religious icons during the mentioned period?) Four images in Ilkhans’ manuscripts were assigned using the iconography method in order to answer these questions. The findings revealed that the painters typically illustrated the prophet’s events life relying on existing descriptions in the Qur’an, hadith and Islamic narratives as well as the interests of art patrons. The results indicate intellectual, religious, political and artistic background of the study period, which looks at the differentiation and the similarity of the images of the Prophet in this period.

Royal Portraiture is one of the last Iranian miniature styles which more or less can be considered a Synthesis Style of Iranian and European elements. This style was inspired by Westernization, but underwent important changes during the Qajar era. In this research, one tries to analyze and interpret one of its ruptures that occurred in the era of Mohammad Shah. The main issue of the present project is to study the ways this rupture and its consequences were occurred in Qajar visual culture. For this purpose, first, the main features of Royal Portraiture before and after the Fath-Ali Shah era were identified and then, the ways of the occurrence of this rupture were described. After that, based on Michel Foucault’s thoughts on the concept of the technique of power, the consequences of this rupture were examined. In this project, which was based on qualitative and analytical research method, after conducting studies, the result obtained from this study shows that the rupture of the Royal Portraiture was taken place in representation of body figure and in the discourse of chronology. The consequence was that, this rupture as a technique of power-record, in addition to reproducing this discourse, replaced metaphorical logic with realistic language in visual culture.