The Portrayal of Persian Art and Culture in Children Books Illustration in Iran

Abstract

The illustration is one of the main sources of information in children books. They could portray different aspects of society and culture and educate children about their own roots and identity. Representation of national identity in children’s picture books in the last 20 years was always the main concern of those who were involved in children book publication in Iran. Illustrators have been trying to portray national identity in their artworks by applying artistic and cultural characteristics. This paper examines the representation of Persian art and culture through the qualitative approach in 91 children’s picture books, which were published in Iran from 2000 to 2010 for the age group of 7–9. The finding indicates that traditional literature is a dominant genre with 38 books as it follows with 31 books of the modern fantasy genre. The presented styles of 41.75% of books are naive while the remaining 19.80 and 30.75% are folk art or combination of them with other styles, respectively. Water-based mediums such as acrylic and watercolor are very common among Iranian illustrators. The exploration of cultural characteristics shows that they were often represented through human characters (67), settings (65), costumes (65), motifs (53), buildings (43), animals, objects, Persian painting and writing, and even layout. For the sake of completeness, the art of different historical periods is included in this study, including Qajar painting, ancient periods (e.g., Achaemenid and Sassanid period), and contemporary period. The result indicates the level of the portrayal of Persian art and culture mostly depends on the genre of picture books.