Comparative Study of Religious Narration of Gothic and Coffee House Paintings

Religious art is rooted in theology and teachings of the same religion, such as the religious Coffee House painting and also the Gothic painting. School of Coffee House painting was formed and became widespread in the late 13th and early 14th century AD. A Coffee House painting was ordered for a variety of places, including a coffee house, a Husseinieh and etc. The theme of the Coffee House painting is wide-ranging; from religious to epic, romantic, and routine. One of the religious themes of this school of painting is depicted in Ashura paintings. Ashura Coffee House paintings, as a big part of the history of Persian painting and other religious paintings such as Christian religious paintings, are narrations and therefore depended on written and verbal text. Christian painting from the beginning and more since Christianity was declared the official religion in forms such as illustration of books, mural painting, typography, mosaic work, glass painting, portraiture iconography, tapestry scenes and painting on canvas narrates topics such as biblical narrations and anecdotes related to the Apostles and saints. Most of these paintings were created for the church or ordered by the same place. Gothic paintings and issues related to the life of Jesus Christ are part of Christian paintings which in this study will be discussed. Although Imam Hussein and Jesus are different in terms of the history of religion in the two missions of the Imam and the Prophet, they are similar in the works of painting in the periods discussed due to the orientation of these characters.These two types of painting, despite their formation in different times and places, have similar characteristics. As part of comparative studies emphasizes on similarities to study the relationship between texts, the purpose of this study is to show these similarities and in the next step to answer to the question that what causes the similarities? The results indicate that continuous composition techniques (continuous simultaneous and non-simultaneous) constitute the most important similarities between the two areas of painting and the repetition of the uniform visual patterns is another shared aspect in techniques of their visual expression. On the other hand, besides depending on linguistic narratives, the similarity of the attitudes of the creators of these paintings and their educational and religious use in relation to their audience, i.e. general public, are also among the factors that played a significant role in the aforementioned similarities. According to the research history, there are few examples of comparative and inter-cultural studies in the field of Coffee House painting. On the other hand, no article that has been written independently on the comparative study of Ashura in Coffee House painting and Gothic painting has been found. The present paper, with a periodic selection of the history of Western painting, and discovering of similarities and common grounds in creation and receiving of works with regard to Ashura in Coffee House painting and Gothic painting, aims to provide a fresh reader on how to narrate the images. The research is descriptive, analytical and comparative. In each of the domains, two samples are selected purposefully and based on the questions and hypotheses of the paper.