Inerpreting Qajar-era Painter Mehr Ali's Iconographic Works Using Gerard Genet's Transtextuality

In the history of Iranian art, Qajar painting has an important place. Royal portraiture school in the period of Fath Ali Shah Qajar is a prominent branch. In Royal portraiture, naturalization, abstraction and decoration are brilliantly intermixed. Mehr Ali was one of the painters of this period that created portraits of Fath Ali Shah and a number of Qajar women. The primary goal of this study is to investigate Mehr Ali's works based on visual features and their tie with traditionalism and the use of decorative elements. The important aspect of this study is the use of Gerard Genet's Transtextuality to read Mehr Ali's works. The main research questions include: 1. How did the decorative elements and traditionalism appear in Mehr Ali's works? and 2. How can we find visual counterparts in his artwork using the metamorphosis classification in Gerard Genet's theory? For this research we use descriptive-analytical methods as well as online and library resources. Our results indicate that Mehr Ali's works have explicit intertextual relations with the writings and poems of poets and writers and the sculptures from Iran’s past. His work has also an implicit and hidden intertextual relationship with ancient Iranian myths. Mehr Ali's works contain the Architextuality of the Qajar court royal portraiture style. All interpretations and critiques related to Mehr Ali's works are considered as Metatextulaity of his artwork. The propaganda works of Fath Ali ‌ Shah Qajar, such as sending portraiture paintings as a peace offering to the court of India and the Versailles palace, are the Paratextuality of Mehr Ali's works. Hypertextuality of Mehr Ali’s works is Fath Ali Shah Qajar, who commissioned the works, and the former style of painting in Iran. Mehr Ali's works are considered as Hypertextuality for the artists after him. Fath Ali Shah is considered to be a traditional legatee who has been familiar with the political ideas of the state from the previous era, on which he emphasized for direct political and cultural validity and legitimacy of the government, which directly and indirectly refer to concept of Price.Visual principles and structural fundamentals of the traditional Iranian paintings are influenced by mystical elements and their special reception from the philosophy of Eastern ontology. The Qajar artists, who were bombarded with the manifestations of European culture and civilization, inadvertently were fascinated by the visual elements of the works. Like other contemporary artists, Mehr Ali neither wanted nor could completely abandon the traditional values of the past. The Qajar era discourse along with two traditional and modern discourses of intellectual development are preceded by visual developments, but the Qajar era discourse of Fath Ali Shah, which can be considered as continuation of Khosravani tradition, the epistemic system of ancient Iranian thought, and the spirit of Aryan ideology, inspired by the Shahnameh of the community, is embedded in a long-lived tradition. In such circumstances, Mehr Ali could find a way out of the common manifestations of naturalism by creating artworks in Qajar portraiture style. Mehr Ali's works contain elements that code and have significant cultural connection with the literary narratives of poets, elements of former Iranian paintings, ancient sculptures, Iran’s mythology, heroic, national patterns, etc. In Mehr Ali’s paintings, Fath Ali Shah is glorious, magnificent, luxurious, and slim-waisted with broad shoulders who has a dagger, a golden sword and a luxurious garment full of patterns. The painting is also full of intricate jewelry. All these refer to the infinite power and wealth of the king. Using transparent colors, a cane with the symbol of the legendary chicken and the crown of the king, he has included symbolic meanings in his paintings .The use of symmetry is evident in the works of Mehr Ali. Folk elements in his work have been largely ignored, and by exaggerated usage of luxurious elements, he tries to depict Shah’s wealth. Because of their highly expressive capacity, Mehr Ali's works can be studied and analyzed by all five approaches of Gerard Genet's Transtextuality. Since Mehr Ali's works are considered adaptations, they are in the category of Inter-Semioism which causes the conversion and duplication of texts. It should also be noted that as a creative artist, Mehr Ali himself was the originator of visual themes and images of his works. Mehr Ali has used the hypertexualities from literature, elements of Iranian painting and miniature, surviving carvings from the historical past of Iran and so on. Mehr Ali has surpassed all other Hypertexualities in his works and he expressed his secrets in an innovative way and created hypertexual artworks.