The story of Siavash's Passage through the Fire is one of the ancient Iranian narratives that has prominent illustrated versions throughout the history of Persian miniature painting. This tale, with two systems of literary and visual signs, provides a suitable background for art education. One of the key objectives of art education in schools is art education, which includes components such as aesthetics, art production, art history, and art criticism. Among these, art criticism, regarded as a modern approach based on the active role of the viewer and intertextual analysis of artworks, has not yet been able to gain a proper place in the Iranian art education system. The present qualitative research, adopting an intertextual approach and focusing on the audience, seeks to address how an intertextual reading of artworks influences the process of audience education and art learning. It is based on the premise that an intertextual perspective in art criticism can facilitate the impact of art on audiences and enhance art education processes. To test this hypothesis, by focusing on the miniature depicting Siyavash's Passage through Fire, selected from the 9th-grade Culture and Art textbook, the study examines the capacities of the intertextual approach for re-reading artworks and elucidating its educational implications. Data were collected through library research, visual analysis of the miniature, and semi-structured interviews with approximately 94 students majoring in art education and educational sciences. Subsequently, the historical background and cultural contexts of the miniature were examined, and its intertextual readings were analyzed. The findings show that intertextual reading has a high capacity for multilayered and integrated analysis of Iranian artworks, and the perceptions of the audience are mainly influenced by their prior knowledge and cultural backgrounds. The results of the study indicate that teaching intertextual criticism can, as an effective approach, strengthen the critical thinking and creativity of students and student-teachers and improve the quality of the art teaching-learning process in school-based art education.