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Mythological Themes in Iranian Culture and Art: Traditional and Contemporary Perspectives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Manya Saadi-Nejad
Manya Saadi-Nejad*
Affiliation:
Concordia University, Montreal, Canada
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Abstract

In Iran, ancient mythical elements are very much alive in the present as a part of the fabric of ordinary people's lives and worldview. This paper explores the relationship between culture, myth, and artistic production in contemporary Iran, using the specific examples of symbols and mythological themes evoked in the work of painter/writer Aydin Aghdashloo and photographer/video artist Shirin Neshat. The paintings of Aghdashloo, in which he deliberately damages beautifully-executed classical style Persian miniatures, convey a sense that the angelic forces have failed and that the world is succumbing to the destructive and degenerative activities of the demonic. The photographs, videos and installations of Neshat likewise draw heavily on cultic forms inherited from ancient Iranian tradition. It is important to note that in none of these cases does the artist use mythological themes and symbols to express their original cultural meaning; rather, they appropriate well-known elements of ancient Iranian culture and imbue them with new meanings relevant to contemporary issues and understandings. What these examples do illustrate is the persistent resonance of ancient Iranian culture among Iranians up to the present day. Iranian artists have demonstrated the effectiveness of evoking their target audience's deep sense of cultural identity to convey contemporary messages using ancient cultural concepts, sometimes on a subconscious level.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , April 2009 , pp. 231 - 246
Copyright
Copyright © The International Society for Iranian Studies 2009

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References

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7 In linguistics, a reconstructed but unattested word is signified by an asterisk.

8 For the modern period see Rūīn Pākbāz, Naqqāshī-ye Īrān (Tehrān, 1379 [2001]), chapter 3; for the contemporary period see chapter 4.

9 For purposes of discussing cultural history, the term “Iran” is used broadly to refer to lands where Iranian political power was present, including the empires of the Achaemenids, the Parthians, and the Sasanians, which extended from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor to Central Asia and northwestern India, an area obviously much larger than contained within the modern-day Islamic Republic of Iran.