Islamic Art History Biography
Source:- Google.com.pkIslamic art is generally reckoned to cover all of the visual arts produced in the lands where Muslims were an important, if not the most important, segment of society. Islamic art differs, therefore, from such other terms as Buddhist or Christian art, for it refers not only to the arts produced by or for the religion of Islam but to the arts of all Islamic cultures. Islamic art was not necessarily created by or for Muslims, for some Islamic art was made by Christian, Jewish, or even Hindu artists working for Muslim patrons, and some Islamic art was created for non-Muslim patrons. The term does not refer to a particular style or period, but covers a broad purview, encompassing the arts produced over one-fifth of the globe in the traditional heartland of Islam (from Spain to India) during the last fourteen hundred years.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century Islam is the world’s fastest growing religion. It has spread beyond the traditional heartland of Islam in North Africa, the Near East, and west Asia to southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Muslims comprise nearly one-quarter of the world’s population; the largest Muslim populations are in southeast Asia, and there are sizable Muslim communities in Europe and North America. The term Islamic art is therefore becoming increasingly unwieldy, and in current usage concerning modern art, the adjective “Islamic” is often restricted to purely religious expressions such as calligraphy.
The idea of an Islamic art is a distinctly modern notion, developed not by the culture itself but by art historians in Europe and America trying to understand a relatively unfamiliar world and to place the arts created there into the newly developing field of art history. In light of the nationalism that developed during the early twentieth century, some scholars, particularly those in the Islamic lands, questioned the use of the term, opting instead for nationalistic names, speaking of, say, Turkish or Persian art. But these terms are also misleading, for Islam has traditionally been a multiethnic and multicultural society, and it is impossible to distinguish the contribution of, for example, Persian-speaking artists in what is today Turkey.
Other scholars, particularly in the late twentieth century, have questioned the term Islamic art as too general, since it refers neither to the art of a specific era nor to that of a particular place or people. Instead, they opt for regional or dynastic categories such as Maghribi (i.e., North African) or Mamluk (i.e., Egyptian and Syrian, thirteenth to sixteenth centuries) art. While these terms can be useful, they overlook the common features that run through much of the art created in the traditional lands of Islam and fragment the picture, particularly for those who are unfamiliar with this area and its rich cultural traditions. Without slighting the differences among the arts created in different regions in different periods, this entry focuses on the common features that run through many of the arts created within the broad rubric of Islamic art: the distinct hierarchy of forms and the themes of decoration.
Forms
Apart from architecture, the arts produced in the Islamic lands follow a different formal hierarchy than that of Western art, where painting and sculpture are the two most important forms and are used to make religious images for worship. These forms play a relatively minor role in Islamic art, where instead the major forms of artistic expression are the arts of the book, textiles, ceramics, woodwork, metalwares, and glass. In Western art, these are often called the “minor,” “decorative,” or “portable” arts, but such labels are pejorative, implying that these forms are secondary, less meaningful and less permanent than the more important, stable, and therefore “noble” arts of painting and sculpture. To use such terms is to view the world of art from the vantage point of the West, and one of the significant features of Islamic art is that it introduces the viewer to different ways of looking at art.
Bookmaking: Of all the arts created in the Islamic lands, the most revered was the art of the book, probably because of the veneration accorded to writing the revealed word of God. Calligraphers were deemed the most important type of artist and paid the most for their work. They penned many fine manuscripts, but the fanciest were exquisite copies of the Qur’an. Those made for use in a congregational mosque were large, multivolume sets, often divided into either seven or thirty parts so that the entire text could be read over the course of a week or a month. Personal copies of the Qur’an were generally smaller, but they, too, often had fine penmanship. The great reverence for writing spilled over into the production of other texts, particularly in Iran, India, and Turkey, and it was one of the reasons that printing with movable type only began to be adopted in the Islamic lands in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Most fine manuscripts made in the Islamic lands also had fine decoration. In early times the calligrapher seems to have also been responsible for the illumination, which was usually added after the writing. For example, the famous scribe known as Ibn al-Bawwab (his nickname literally means “son of a doorman”) did both the writing and the decoration in a fine but small copy of the Qur’an made at Baghdad between 1000 and 1001. In early times calligraphers may have prepared all their own materials, but from the fourteenth century onward, the crafts became increasingly specialized, and we know of distinct calligraphers, illuminators, and binders. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they were joined by a host of other specialists, ranging from draftsmen to gold beaters, gold sprinklers, rubricators (those who drew the lines), and the like. All worked together in a team to produce some of the most sublime books ever created in which all the elements were carefully harmonized in a unified and balanced whole.
Textiles: A second major art form popular in the traditional Islamic lands is textiles. They were the most important economically and have often been likened to the heavy industries of modern times. The four main fibers used were wool, cotton, linen, and silk, but the making of fine textiles lay not only in producing the fibers, but even more in the expense of procuring the dyes, the mordants to fix the colors, the materials for the looms, and the transport of both fibers and finished goods. It is often hard for modern viewers to appreciate these textiles, since few have survived from medieval times intact. Most were literally worn to shreds, and, unlike in other cultures, only a handful were preserved as grave goods since Muslims traditionally wrap the body in a plain white sheet for burial. Nevertheless in their own times, these textiles were immensely valuable not only in the Muslim lands but also across the globe: Medieval Europeans commonly used imported Islamic textiles to wrap the bones of their saints, and hence, paradoxically, most medieval Islamic textiles have been preserved in Christian contexts.
Islamic Art History Islamic Art Calligraphy And Architecture Designs Patterns Wallpapers Desktop Wallpapers Hd Calligraphy Wallpapers Calligraphy Canvas Wallpapers Canvas
Islamic Art History Islamic Art Calligraphy And Architecture Designs Patterns Wallpapers Desktop Wallpapers Hd Calligraphy Wallpapers Calligraphy Canvas Wallpapers Canvas
Islamic Art History Islamic Art Calligraphy And Architecture Designs Patterns Wallpapers Desktop Wallpapers Hd Calligraphy Wallpapers Calligraphy Canvas Wallpapers Canvas
Islamic Art History Islamic Art Calligraphy And Architecture Designs Patterns Wallpapers Desktop Wallpapers Hd Calligraphy Wallpapers Calligraphy Canvas Wallpapers Canvas
Islamic Art History Islamic Art Calligraphy And Architecture Designs Patterns Wallpapers Desktop Wallpapers Hd Calligraphy Wallpapers Calligraphy Canvas Wallpapers Canvas
Islamic Art History Islamic Art Calligraphy And Architecture Designs Patterns Wallpapers Desktop Wallpapers Hd Calligraphy Wallpapers Calligraphy Canvas Wallpapers Canvas
Islamic Art History Islamic Art Calligraphy And Architecture Designs Patterns Wallpapers Desktop Wallpapers Hd Calligraphy Wallpapers Calligraphy Canvas Wallpapers Canvas
Islamic Art History Islamic Art Calligraphy And Architecture Designs Patterns Wallpapers Desktop Wallpapers Hd Calligraphy Wallpapers Calligraphy Canvas Wallpapers Canvas
Islamic Art History Islamic Art Calligraphy And Architecture Designs Patterns Wallpapers Desktop Wallpapers Hd Calligraphy Wallpapers Calligraphy Canvas Wallpapers Canvas
Islamic Art History Islamic Art Calligraphy And Architecture Designs Patterns Wallpapers Desktop Wallpapers Hd Calligraphy Wallpapers Calligraphy Canvas Wallpapers Canvas
Islamic Art History Islamic Art Calligraphy And Architecture Designs Patterns Wallpapers Desktop Wallpapers Hd Calligraphy Wallpapers Calligraphy Canvas Wallpapers Canvas
Islamic Art History Islamic Art Calligraphy And Architecture Designs Patterns Wallpapers Desktop Wallpapers Hd Calligraphy Wallpapers Calligraphy Canvas Wallpapers Canvas
Islamic Art History Islamic Art Calligraphy And Architecture Designs Patterns Wallpapers Desktop Wallpapers Hd Calligraphy Wallpapers Calligraphy Canvas Wallpapers Canvas
Islamic Art History Islamic Art Calligraphy And Architecture Designs Patterns Wallpapers Desktop Wallpapers Hd Calligraphy Wallpapers Calligraphy Canvas Wallpapers Canvas
Islamic Art History Islamic Art Calligraphy And Architecture Designs Patterns Wallpapers Desktop Wallpapers Hd Calligraphy Wallpapers Calligraphy Canvas Wallpapers Canvas
Islamic Art History Islamic Art Calligraphy And Architecture Designs Patterns Wallpapers Desktop Wallpapers Hd Calligraphy Wallpapers Calligraphy Canvas Wallpapers Canvas
No comments:
Post a Comment