رThe Shahnameh is rich in the use of symbolic and symbolic systems, including "farrah"; The Shahnameh has been favored by painters in different periods. Emphasis on the signs in the pictorial manuscripts is done by simultaneously researching the system of pictorial and textual signs. This is because the concepts in the pictorial manuscripts from the Qajar period onwards, in addition to paying attention to the textual systems, are more prominent in terms of personalization. The aim of this article is to examine how the "farrah", which is one of the prominent symbols of Shahnameh painting, is depicted, and to find and classify their types and characteristics, specifically in a Qajar Shahnameh specimen preserved in the Smithsonian Museum, which has not been researched.
The main question of this research: What elements does the symbol "Farra" appear with in the Shahnameh under study? The research method is descriptive-analytical and the method of collecting library and documentary information is the importance of this research in pursuing the above issues in the Shahnameh and its pictorial version and its necessity is that the images of the version under study have not been studied so far with a focus on the concept of symbology and farreh. The research population is the images of the Shahnameh under study with the visual theme of "farreh", which were selected non-randomly and purposefully and were studied until theoretical saturation was reached.
The analysis is qualitative. The results show that the nature of the Farrah in the version under study is different from its previous examples in the illustrated versions, and the luminous halo and golden color have been completely eliminated and have been reflected in human, plant, object and abstract symbols. The above visual items have been analyzed according to the extracted literary text and illustrations.
The concept of the Farrah menu is represented by signs such as dominion over nature, a luminous halo, connection with luck and fortune, breaking habits, and material identifiers such as animals and sacred tools on the noble person. These symbols are related to two types of legitimacy, divine and bloody. Farrah justifies the legitimacy of the king, hero, and noble person, the delegation of government and the powers of the natural world to him, and from an anthropological point of view, it is the manifestation of the sacred ancestors of humanity or the cultural hero of civilization, which is a fundamental model in the Shahnameh. In this article, and considering the visual characteristics close to reality in the Qajar period, first and with regard to the poems of the Shahnameh, the cases related to the representation of Farrah in the version under study were extracted and then a separate visual analysis and examination was carried out for each image. In response to the first question of the article, it can be stated that, in general, the symbols of Farrah in the version under study include the symbols of 1. animals (ram, deer, lion, eagle, falcon, oreghan, and huma), 2. luminous motifs (halo of light and fire), 3. objects and clothing (crown, globe, mace, headband, and throne), 4. abstract shapes (sun), and 5. plants.
Some of the symbolic animals in the Shahnameh are those that embody the divine Farrah and are sent as a divine sign to the chosen person to embody his Farrahmandi. The luminous halo around the head and symbolic birds, including the Simorgh, as the most important elements of the representation of Farrah in the pre-Qajar periods, were not visible in this version, and the way of drawing space and elements has come close to realistic visualization. The attention to visual details, including the representation of Farrah symbols on clothing and objects, has been reduced, and symbols such as the sun have been briefly alluded to using the dot-mapping method. Some of the symbolic tools in the Shahnameh are considered to be among the powers of Farrah, and its theological power, which is a symbol of divine attention to the Farrahmand and chosen people, is transmitted by this means with sacred power. Among these instrumental symbols is the Persepolis, which is carried to the sky by demons. In this version, special attention has been paid to the objects in the paintings, despite their general appearance. In paintings of the pre-Qajar periods, the shamsa was depicted around the heads of kings, and the tradition of using it as one of the symbols of government for gifts continued until the Safavid turbans, which is not unrelated to the granting of the royal farrah in the illustrated version under study in this article.