The Narratological Analysis of the Horse Motif in the Painting of "Zahhak: The Legend of the Serpent King"

 
The nature of narratology in the field of picture, since it has a distinctive appearance compared to other visual areas of the narrative, is clearly different from other fields. The difference between a pictorial narrative, such as a painting or a miniature, and literary or cinematic narratives is in the momentary nature of its presentation. In such a way that there is no time sequence in their narrative. In a general definition, narratology is the study of narrative and narrative structure, as well as the methods that affect human perception when faced with it. The origin of narratology goes back to Aristotle's theories about the science of speech. Nevertheless, it is accepted that modern narratology was initiated by the Russian formalists, especially Vladimir Propp and Mikhail Bakhtin's theories of heteroglossia, dialogism, and chronology, first introduced in his book; The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (1975). In general, the narrative has been proposed as a description of two separate events, and theorists have been discussing the form and context of narratology for a long time.
Meanwhile, Tahmasbi Shahnameh is one of the most well-known collections of narrative paintings in Iranian culture and art, which has a strong link with the classical literature of Iran and expresses the stories and events of the Shahnameh in the form of pictorial narration.Tahmasabi Shahnameh illustrations are one of the examples of visual reading of the Shahnameh narration in the form of pictures. In this research, it identifies the path of transformation between pictorial text and literary text of Shahnameh through the narratological analysis of one of Tahmasbi Shahnameh miniatures titled "Zahhak: The legend of the Serpent King", and since one of the most used motifs in this illustration is the horse, therefore, this article emphasizes on this motif. In this article, taking into account that the essence of narrative studies is in the field of imagery, which is different from other visual fields of narrative, an attempt has been made to analyze and examine the image of Zahhak Mardosh, emphasizing the role of the horse motif.
Zahak Mardosh's painting of Tahmasabi Shahnameh, which belongs to the Safavid period, is one of the examples of visual expression and narrative painting. Due to the abundant use of the role of the horse in this painting, the role of the horse has been emphasized in the analysis of its visual narrative. In this picture, which refers to the tying of "Zahhak" in a cave, it represents the story of "Zahhak: The legend of the Serpent King" in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh from the perspective of visual media. The fact that a story can be told in different media is one of the basic claims of narratology, and in this article, he tries to analyze the visual narrative of this picture by examining two active and responsive elements in this picture.
In general, visual narration originates from the assumption that individual images are capable of evoking stories or implying meaning, but for storytelling in the strict narratological sense, a specific path must be determined, which can be achieved by creating semantic bases from two factors: the active and responsive. Therefore, in order to find semantic implications during the analysis of the narrative of visual expression, attention should be paid to this issue. So far, the studies on the visual format of narratives have been limited to studies on the structural composition and coloring and the relationship between the components of the visual elements of the image, and less attention has been paid to the concepts of the semantic implications of the images based on the theories of narrative theory. Considering the few studies in this field, the necessity of research in this case requires that more attention should be paid to the discussion in this field.
In this way, the purpose of this article is to study the narrative role of the horse in the painting of "Zahhak: The legend of the Serpent King" by using visual cognitive narrative analysis to identify the two elements of the active and responsive parts and to identify the signs of the pictorial narrative and to find the visual semantic implications of the text of this story in this painting. This article is focused on the different way of expressing the visual meaning of this painting with the literary text of Shahnameh.
It should be noted that since one of the most widely used motifs in this painting is the motif of a horse, the motif of a horse is considered one of the important visual elements in relation to the semantic implications in the narration of this story.
The nature of this research is of a basic type that has used the descriptive-analytical research method and examines the role of the horse in the painting of "Zahhak: The Legend of Serpent King" in the Tahmasbi Shahnameh. The aim of the research is to identify and analyse images and how they relate to the narrative text in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh. In addition, in the context of the destination, a picture with the same title is considered in the Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasab. Finally, they are compared in two different mediums of Iranian literature and painting.
The research questions are: To what extent are the signs of the pictorial narration of the Miniature of "Zahhak: The Legend of the Serpent King" in Tamasabi Shahnameh compatible with the expressive signs of the Shahnameh? How has the meaning transformation in the process of transforming the text of this narration into a picture in the miniature of "Zahhak: The Legend of the Serpent King"?
In this way, in the first part of this article, the analysis of the visual narration of the story of "Zahhak: The Legend of the Serpent King" is discussed, and then, the perception of semantic implications from the visual media in this image is examined. In the other part, the structural analysis of the narrative is done, in order to analyze this image, hypothetical lines have been drawn in connection with visual elements and the relationship between these elements has been identified. In this way, two active and responsive parts were defined and the position of each element in these two parts was determined. Therefore, the layers of Shahnameh narrative in this painting are extracted based on two components: active and responsive part.
In this way, in the narrative analysis of "Zahhak: The legend of the Serpent King", two active and responsive factors were identified, which are simultaneously with the narration of the story, these elements, which are parts of the trajectory of "Zahhak: The legend of the Serpent King", with the constant variable of the visual expression of the story, which is the role of the horse. They have established a close relationship. In such a way that in the visual reading of the components of the composition of the picture from the painter’s point of view, the main core of the picture is drawn on top of the picture, in a way that dominates the role of other elements. The role of horse motif has also been introduced as an active factor in the story line of this narrative, which in the study of composition and colouring of this motif role, has connected with the responsive elements which are the scenes of the story. Therefore, the role of human elements has been introduced in this picture as a part of the responsive elements.
The results show that in the representation of hypothetical vectors in the illustration of "Zahhak: The Legend of the Serpent King", this miniature is divided into two active and responsive parts, which connect the components of the picture horizontally, vertically or diagonally. Therefore, the horse motif as an active factor gives shape to the components in the image. In the end, in extracting the layers of Shahnameh's narrative in pictorial form, in addition to the represented visual elements of the story, attention has also been paid to the type of interactive elements in the form of two active and responsive agents.