Poster design by Razman Goudarzi[/caption] Poster design by Razman Goudarzi[/caption]س خنران: دکتر بهرنگ نبوینژاد، مدرس تاریخ هنر، کالج کلمبیا، ونکوور
سیمرغ، پرندهٔ اسطورهای ایران باستان، جایگاه ویژهای در ادب و فرهنگ ای رانی دارد. ارجاعات بصری و متنی به این پرنده، نمادگرایی مرموز و پیچیدهای را پیرامون این موجود افسانهای در منابع ادبی فارسی شکل میدهد. در این نشست سخ نران با بررسی دقیق بازنماییهای مصور سیمرغ در چهار نسخهٔ خطی سلطنتی شاهنامه ، به مفاهیم ایدئولوژیک پنهان در این بازنماییها میپردازد.
The event recording is now available:
https://youtu.be/jeDnKFLOZko<
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The fantastic Simurgh\, the mythical bird of ancient Persia\, h
as maintained a significant presence in Persian culture. The visual and tex
tual references to this bird manifest a mysterious and complex symbolism sh
aped around this super-natural creature in Persian literary sources. The Si
murgh evolves from a myth\, to the symbol of royalty\, to the guardian of P
ersian kingdom\, and finally to represent the Divine. This promotion and tr
ansformation are facilitated through the idea of divine protection and king
ship inherited from ancient Persia\, transforming the representations of th
e Simurgh into powerful images. The intertextual analysis of the Avestan an
d Pahlavi references to the Simurgh\, and their comparison with the charact
eristics of the Simurgh in the Shāhnāma\, has allowed me to trace the amalg
amation of these sources in the Persian national epics. Through a process o
f literary creativity\, Firdausi combines the characteristics of the two my
thical birds\, Saēna and Vāreghna\, to shape the Simurgh in the Shāhnāma. I
n the light of these sources\, the representations of the Simurgh are conte
xtualized in this study. Through a close examination of the representations
of the fantastic bird in the illustrative program of four royal manuscript
s of the Shāhnāma\, I argue for an ideologically charged nature for the rep
resentations of this bird in these manuscripts. These manuscripts comprise
those produced for the Timurid prince\, Muhammad Juki (1444-45)\, and the t
hree Safavid kings\, including Shah Tahmasp (1522-35)\, Shah Ismaʿil II (15
76-77)\, and Shah ʿAbbas I (1587-97). Thus\, our presenter suggests that th
e presence of the royal\, divine\, and Iranian glory (farr-i īzadī\, farr-i
Īrānī)\, sought for by both rulers and individuals (in this case\, the art
ists of the paintings discussed) in the Persian system of thought\, charges
the representations of the Simurgh in these illustrated manuscripts of the
Shāhnāma produced between the fourteenth and the seventeenth centuries.
Although this study deals with literary sources\, both in the Avestan a nd Pahlavi languages and Classical Persian literature\, this talk and prese ntation can be altered to focus on the Shāhnāma as a narrative text\, thus becomes accessible and appealing to a wider audience. The extensive examina tion of illustrated pages of the Shāhnāma through the presentation will fur ther assist its perception by the public.
Dr. Behrang Nabavi Nejad received her PhD in Art History and Visual Studies from the University of Victoria (2017) where she has taught courses on Islamic art a nd architecture as a sessional instructor. She holds a Master’s degree from the department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations\, the University o f Toronto (2009)\, and a Master’s in History of Art from Bangalore Universi ty\, India (2000). She is currently teaching courses on various aspects of art history including Canadian contemporary art at the Columbia College\, V ancouver. She has joined the Centre of Comparative Muslim Studies\, Simon F raser University as a research associate in June 2019. Her doctoral researc h examines the illustrations of royal manuscripts of the Persian national e pics\, the Shāhnāma through an intertextual analysis of the pre-Islamic wri tten sources and contemporary historiographies. Her research proposes three distinctive iconographic categories for the representations of the mythica l bird\, the Sīmurgh in Persian painting. Behrang is currently preparing he r doctoral thesis for publication. She published the second edition of the ARTiculate\, as the editor in chief.