Hypertextual Reading of Iran's Copied Carpets from the Indo-Mongol Pictorial Carpet

Detailed Abstract
Artistic productions adapted from different fields can guarantee the creation of new works, the cultural and technical continuity of arts. The visual systems governing the main source of inspiration undergo changes in the path of successive adaptations. Identifying and enumerating the main components in the adapted artwork and its evolution in different artistic fields can emphasize the originality and localization of reference works and the creativity and innovation of new productions. The purpose of this article is to understand how two Iranian carpets were taken from the Indian pictorial carpet belonging to the Timurid period. The first step for producing knotted Indian carpet was taken during Akbar Shah (1556-1605) and Jahangir (1605-1627) reign. Among the countless carpets belonging to the period of Timurid rule in India, some examples clearly have asymmetric patterns. Such carpets are considered pictorial carpets due to their one-sidedness, asymmetry, and naturalism. An example of pictorial carpet of the Timurids era in India with the mentioned structure is preserved in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Two examples of pictorial carpets, approximately one hundred years old, with the same mentioned structure, are kept in the treasures of Astan Quds Razavi Museum and Malek National Museum. The main goal of this research is to understand how two Iranian pictorial carpets were adapted from the Indian sample and the typology of their relationships. One of facilitating opinions is Gerard Genette's theory of hypertextuality, through which it is possible to identify the intertextual relationships and derivations of three artworks with a time gap. In this way, this research aims to present the relationship between two Iranian hypertexts with the Indian pretext and answers the following questions: Under the influence of what components do the selected examples are related to each other? And which hypertextual relationships do the under study Iranian carpets have with respect to the Indian pattern?
The importance and necessity of this article can be considered as the evaluation of carpets produced based on a non-native pretext, the identification of artistic methods taken from the legacy of the ancestors in such a way that it can be considered as a pathbreaker for researchers in the field of analysis and creation of works of art. This analysis shows how a range of motifs, composition, and colors in a common context (carpet) can present a new interpretation of a product derived from the heritage and cultural-artistic identity of the past in a new arrangement.
The present study is qualitative, and it was carried out in a descriptive-comparative method with the approach of Genette's hypertextuality based on the collection of library data (observation and scanning) and the explanation and classification of the findings has been based on thematic analysis. Therefore, study bodies were introduced in the form of pretext and hypertext in the first. Then, by enumerating the aspects of difference and commonality, how artists' overlaps and innovations have been explained in creating a new work. The statistical population in this research is visual carpets; however, due to the presence of specific visual relationships (the type of motifs and their composition in the carpet design) in all three carpets, sampling was done by the researcher in order to determine the statistical population in a purposeful way using a selective sample with an approach to index cases; Thus, out of the three samples of selected visual carpets, one sample was included as an Indian pretext and two samples were included as Iranian hypertexts.
Hypertextuality is very widely used in identifying the level of relationships between texts; in hypertextuality, the researcher looks for the impact of one text on the other texts. If the texts are only imitated from the pre-text with the sameness (imitation) and if this adaptation is accompanied by visual changes, we deal with the relationship of transformation. Genette classifies the relationships of overlap in a comprehensive view; hypertextuality is either a traditional operation (pastiche, charge, and forgery) of the pretext or a transformational operation (parody, travesty, transposition) in relation to the pretext. According to what was mentioned, it can be said that in the contemporary period, the claim of originality and uniqueness of artistic works has lost its richness, and artistic works can be considered as a compilation of pieces of pre-existing arts. Based on this, works of art next to each other can restore and add meaning. In this article, the adoption of Iranian hypertexts from Indian pretexts has been investigated in the form of three effective visual components in the way of expressing artworks, such as the type of images, composition (structure and direction) and the range of colors used in the background and border of carpets.
Each of the three mentioned carpets is an independent text that, despite the use of the reference text, benefits from structural and visual coherence. In response to the first question, it was confirmed that all three texts are related to each other in the type of their design (imagery), also they are related in the main animal-human compositions in the middle and at the bottom of the carpet, and the fact that the two texts (Qajar and Pahlavi) are copied from the Indian version (10th and 11th century A.H.) is also confirmed. In order to get the answer to the second question of the article about how to extract the hypertextual relationships between Indian carpets and Iranian pictorial carpets under study, Iranian hypertexts through the two ratios of transformation and homogeneity based on three visual-form axes including motifs, composition (structure and direction) and coloring, were compared to the Indian pretext. Hypertext 1 (preserved in Malek National Museum) was mostly similar to the pretext in terms of design and the hypertext 2 (preserved in Astan Quds Razavi Museum) had similar proportions in terms of homogeneity and transformation. In composition (structure and direction), hypertext 1 transforms more in proportion to the pretext, and hypertext 2 was mostly similar. In terms of color scheme, significant contrast was evident in both texts compared to the pre-text, but hypertext 2 had a more comprehensive contrast. The likenesses were mainly forged type with serious function. Also, transformations were identified with various structures, such as parody (entertainment function), permutation (serious function) and travesty (humorous function). The most effective transformations that have presented significant visual differences were done through permutation and travesty interpretations, thus has turned the hypertexts into independent texts that have distanced themselves from the Indian pre-text in the aforementioned three axes. But the two Iranian pictorial carpets presented two diverse texts taken from an Indian pre-text and emphasized that the adaptation of different previous artistic fields in the direction of new creation cannot be summed up only in the system of representation; Rather, the artist's creative mind and the diversity-seeking nature of the work's audience provide this platform, so that a creative story can be presented by removing and adding appropriate conceptual and visual components. Therefore, along with quantitative and qualitative changes of the elements, Iranian hypertexts presented a new visual and conceptual system by preserving the cultural components governing the main source of inspiration. In other words, it has presented an example of an earthly-mythical Indian image, and Iranian artists have tried to make the mentioned state lighter in their reproduction of this version.