Correspondence of Syntagmatic and Paradigmatic Axes Relations, and Their Transformation in Relation to the Communicative Role of Shahnameh Illustration in Shiraz School of Miniature

When treated like texts with their own visual language, illustrations from the Shiraz School of miniature are a mixture of the syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations of signs. Syntagmatic relations reveal the different ways the elements of a text are connected, while paradigmatic relations identify the sets of signifiers that signify the content of the text, dealing with intratextual and intertextual relations respectively. The resulting correspondence eventually shapes the structure of the illustrations, which in turn gives meaning to the signs therein. Aiming to analyze the types of those relations and their transformations, this research tries to enhance how the narrative of these illustrations, as visual media, is perceived and recalled. Reviewing the existing literature, this descriptive/analytical research concludes that Shiraz School miniatures featured different types of syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations and transformations.