Iranian self-taught painting, through its close connection with lived experience, individual imagination, and intuitive expression, forms a complex system of symbolism and visual structures that challenges conventional methods of art analysis. These works move beyond representing the external world and become a space for the manifestation of the artist’s inner world, unconscious, and imagination. Therefore, examining their symbolic and imaginative structures requires a theoretical framework capable of addressing the visual, narrative, and semantic layers of the image simultaneously.This study aims to analyze symbolic structures and visual imagination in the paintings of Iranian self-taught artists based on Gilbert Durand’s theory of the anthropological structures of the imaginary, and to identify shared and distinctive patterns in the visual organization of selected works. The research was conducted using a qualitative approach and a descriptive–analytical method. Data were collected through documentary research using library and online sources. The sample was selected purposively and consists of four paintings by four Iranian self-taught artists: Mohsen Asgarian, Akram Sartakhti, Hasan Hazermoshar, and Mokarrameh Ghanbari.The selected works were analyzed through visual reading of symbolic signs and by relating them to the diurnal and nocturnal regimes, as well as the heroic, mystical, and synthetic structures within Durand’s framework. The findings show that while elements of the diurnal regime and heroic structure appear in all four paintings, the dominant tendency in most works is closer to the nocturnal regime, particularly mystical and synthetic structures. In these paintings, imagination is shaped less through opposition and exclusion than through connection, reconciliation of opposites, coexistence of heterogeneous elements, and the creation of multilayered, fluid worlds. The study concludes that Iranian self-taught painting embodies complex symbolic and imaginative structures rooted in lived experience, memory, the unconscious, and the artist’s mental world. Gilbert Durand’s theory provides an effective framework for interpreting these structures