the features of dragons in safavid`s painting based on ferdosi description in shahnameh

the form of dragon has been appeared during the history of iran art in different formats whit mysterious contents. in fact, it is the only mythical character that is in collection with the rest ancient earthly animals. dragon with its scaly serpent, like body, is also one of the twelve zodiac signs in the world. in most of the old pictures, figures or written texts, they are explained with a body like snakes, with wings and mouths like bets and sometimes with a horn as imaginary beasts. their tails are at back of the body and their legs and arms are at the middle and cause movement. as it had been cleared according to different previous articles and papers, dragons are very huge odd animals with two or sometimes more wings, four legs and hands that can fly and exhaust fire out from their mouth. although this ancient and imaginary animal in most cultures is to some extent the same but they have and make different inference and meaning. for example, chinese or lung dragons symbolize power and excellence, valiancy, boldness, heroism and perseverance, nobility and divinity. dragon is energetic, decisive, optimistic, intelligent and ambitious the connection of this role to culture, believe, and ancient in one hand and persian rich literature in the other hand, significant its role more than previous time. persia is the greatest center of design and art in asia. it has its strong tradition. mutual influences, from time to time, have provided useful stimulus towards fresh achievements in this country. the firs image of dragon has seen on jade and bronze objects of the neolithic period and bronze age. over the course of history we find that the dragon has served as a famous and well known theme in various forms of art. it is clear that iranian painters according to ancient stories and available literal sources especially in ferdousi abolghaseme,s shahnameh, for displaying this animal have used a beautiful and an especial grammar. the beautiful and sigh-seeing pictures and composition of this animal in shahnameh in a very acceptable plan have helped other painters and artists to achieve the shape of this imaginary animal. but, it should not be ever forget that painters in different places and position, that they need to go over these descriptions, use another features and explanations in addition to ferdosi’s descriptions in shahnameh. in most of the cultures dragon has a symbolic concept. surely, this fictional animal during the history has been changed and the usage of its meaning has been changed too. so this study tries to investigate the views and expressive – visual structures of dragons in a descriptive and analytical way. in addition, as spoke previously about the developing and changing of these shapes and pictures during time, this article tries to study ferdosies’ visual description of this animal in shahnameh and then compares these description with painted dragons in safavid painting. the paper by comparing and adapting of used contraption shapes of dragon with previous ones, has cleared new contents .that is, this study tries to investigate the size and situation of dragon in frames, decoration ,the kind of texture, used colors and dragons face for clearing its impact on evil and concupiscence.