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Explores how Islamic art and architecture were made: their materials and their social, political, economic and religious context
In their own words, Jonathan Bloom and Sheila Blair espouse 'things and thinginess rather than theories and isations'. This book's practical, down-to-earth dimension, expressed in plain, simple English, runs counter to the current fashion for theoretical explanations and their accompanying jargon.
Its many insights, firmly anchored in artistic practice in architecture, painting and the decorative arts, are supported by ample technical know-how. This bottom-up approach differs radically and refreshingly from that of much top-down contemporary scholarship. It privileges the maker rather than the patron.
The range is wide - mosques becoming temples; how religious buildings reflect politics; Yemeni frescoes and inscriptions; domestic Syrian 18th-century ornament; Egyptian bookbinding techniques; recycling and repair in Damascene crafts; conservation versus restoration; narrative on ceramics; metalwork with architectural motifs; lost buildings reconstructed; how objects speak;Muslim burials in China; the role of migrating potters; Mughal painting; stone carpet weights; the use of metals in Islamic manuscripts, calligraphy and modern artists' books.
Key Features
. Explores previously neglected practice-based approaches to Islamic art
. Looks at Islamic art from the craftsman's rather than the patron's viewpoint
. Covers not just the Islamic heartlands but extends to India and China, underlining the global presence of Islamic art
. Presents material and sources which are usually overlooked in discussions of Islamic art
. Revises conventional wisdom in fields as disparate as book painting and ceramics
. Illuminates the interface of modern politics and Islamic art
Robert Hillenbrand is Professor Emeritus of Islamic Art the University of Edinburgh and Professorial Fellow in the School of Art History at the University of St Andrews.
List of contents
Series Editor's Foreword
Introduction
1. Old Mosques: Destroyed, Lost and Transformed in 20
th- and 21
st-Century India
Catherine B. Asher
2. The 'Arraf Mosque in Jibla
Barbara Finster
3. Monumentality
en Miniature: On two dome-shaped carpet weights -
mir-I farsh
Kjeld von Folsach
4. 'The View from Above': Muslim Perceptions of the Turks of Syria and the Jazira in the Period 1070 to 1176
Carole Hillenbrand
5. The Multiple Faces of Restoration in the Medieval Islamic Architecture of Central Asia
Robert Hillenbrand
6. A Damascus Room in Los Angeles
Linda Komaroff
7. Rubbish, Recycling and Repair: Perspectives on the Portable Arts of the Islamic Middle East
Marcus Milwright
8. A Copper-Alloy Plate with Architectural Imagery in Berlin... and Jerusalem?
Lawrence Nees
9. Looking Inside the Book: Doublures of the Mamluk Period
Alison Ohta
10. Taj al-Din 'Alishah: The Reconstruction of his Mosque Complex at Tabriz
Bernard O'Kane
11. Once More Cosmophilia: Facing the Truth, Later
Simon O'Meara
12. The Making, Unmaking and Making Sense of an Illustration from an Imperial Mughal
Akbarnama
Laura E. Parodi
13. The Use of Metals in Islamic Manuscripts
Cheryl A. Porter
14. Telling Stories: Artists' Books in the Collection of the British Museum
Venetia Porter
15. The Freer Beaker in Text and Image
Marianna Shreve Simpson, with a Note by 'Abdullah Ghouchani
16. When Muslims Died in China
Nancy Steinhardt
17. Abu'l-Fazl's Description of Akbar's 'House of Depiction'
W. M. Thackston
18. 'Migration Theory' in Islamic Pottery
Oliver Watson
About the author
Professor Robert Hillenbrand is Professor Emeritus of Islamic Art the University of Edinburgh and Professor of Islamic Art at the University of St Andrews.
Summary
Explores how Islamic art and architecture were made: their materials and their social, political, economic and religious context
