Museographs The Art of Islam: A Survey

Caron Caswell Lazar

Description

Experience desert-dwelling at its most vibrant! From the essential features of a mosque to a wide assemblage of colorful edifices designed to offset monochromatic and infertile landscapes, Islamic art encompasses an impressive scope of mediums and styles. Some traditions mirror regional tastes that span from Spain and Morocco in the West to Central Asia and India in the East, still others connote the trademark aptness of color, shape, and pattern for which Islamic art is universally known.

Let "Islamic Art: A Survey" start you on the road to appreciating the complexity of Islamic imagery. Investigate the Qu'ran's (Koran's) ideological and decorative influence–from moral codes to the absence of sculpture and the silhouetting of characters on murals or illustrated stories with Biblical and prophetic themes. This astonishingly eclectic monograph has it all! The pottery, calligraphy, and metalwork represent benchmark achievements that will blow your mind! Perfect as a rainy day read to enliven your senses and whet your appetite for intriguing and stimulating knowledge.

Sujets

• Islam
• Art
• Middle Eastern

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 02 février 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781456608552
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

MUSEOGRAPHS
The Art of Islam
A Survey
 
 
by
Carôn Caswell Lazar
 


Copyright 2012 Carôn Caswell Lazar,
All rights reserved.
 
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
http://www.eBookIt.com
 
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0855-2
 
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
 
The Museographs monographs are publications of The Lazar Group, Incorporated
 
The Art of Islam: A Survey , Copyright 1993 Carôn Caswell Lazar
All rights reserved
No reproductions of this newsletter, or its attending materials, in whole or in part or in any form may be made without written authorization of the copyright owner.
 
Museographs Titles:
 
Japanese Satsuma Pottery
Contemporary African-American Folk Art
Shaker Design
Mexican Painting of the 19th & 20th Centuries
American Indians I: The Sioux
Appalachian Handicrafts
American Indians II: The Cherokee
The Old City of Jerusalem: A Cultural Crossroad
Illuminated Manuscripts
Mexican Folk Art
American Indians III: Kanien’kehaka
Art, Myth, Legend and Story
The Art of the Celts
 
The Art of Islam: A Survey
Note: Certain Arabic words used in this monograph lack their complete and proper diacritics. The omissions are because these symbols may not display properly on all eReader devices. We hope that these omissions will not be seen as disrespectful but rather as an accommodation to technologies as they exist today.
 

Bowl,
Persian, Rayy
13th century
 
Collection of Cincinnati Art Museum
Given in honor of Mr. and Mrs. Charles F. Williams by their children
The Prophet Comes
In the 6th century the Arabian peninsula lay between the margins of the civilized world, bordered by both the Byzantine and Persian empires but subject to neither. Most of the population was nomadic, tribal peoples who lived by tending their herds and by raiding rival tribes and the people who lived in the oases and borderlands. Some earned their living by tilling the soil in the few areas where the earth granted her consent; some made their livelihoods by commerce during periods when world events led to a revived interest in the trans-Arabian trade routes. After nearly a century of peace the renewed conflict between Byzantium and Persia ushered in one such period with both empires becoming active in and near Arabia in the 6th century. A few small towns made a living on a share of the traffic that passed through Arabia—between the Mediterranean world and the East. One of these towns was Mecca, a small oasis settlement in western Arabia. Muhammad was born here, around the year 571 C.E.
 
The people of the peninsula, the Arabs, had a common literary language and a rich poetic literature that helped to give these widely dispersed tribes a sense of shared identity. However, they had no common political order and religiously they remained pagans, worshipping many gods whom they believed to be under the authority of the supreme god, Allah. The Arabs were familiar with other religions, there were colonies of both Christians and Jews in Arabia, and in fact some Arabs had converted to both of these groups. Others, who were also dissatisfied with idol-worship, found themselves unable to find comfort in either Christianity or Judaism.
 
According to tradition, Muhammad received his first call when he was approaching his fortieth year. One night, in the month of Ramaden, as he slept alone on Mount Hira the Angel Gabriel came to him and said, “ Recite!” Muhammad hesitated and three times the Angel almost stifled him until Muhammad asked, “ What shall I recite? ” Then the Angel said, “ Recite in the name of thy Lord who created all things, who created man from clots of blood. Recite, for thy Lord is the most generous, who taught by the pen, who taught man what he did not know. ”
 
These words are from the ninety-sixth chapter of the Qur’an ( Koran ). The word qur’an is an Arabic word meaning reading or recitation and is used to describe the book of revelations which Muslims believe were given by God to Muhammad. After the first message Muhammad received many more, all of which he brought to the people of his birthplace, urging them to abandon their idolatrous beliefs and practices and to believe in one, single, universal God.
 
His teachings began to win converts in Mecca, first his own family and then in wider circles. Soon his preaching aroused opposition among the leading families of Mecca, who regarded the new faith as a threat to their own beliefs and to their interests. Various forms of pressure, including violence, were levied against the believers in an effort to detach them from the prophet. Relations between Muhammad and his compatriots became worse and worse until at length some of his followers took refuge in Ethiopia.
 
In 622—thirteen years after his first call—Muhammad made an agreement with the people of Yathrib, a town some 280 miles north of Mecca. They agreed to welcome him and his converts, and to defend them as they would defend themselves. In exchange Muhammad was to act as their arbitrator. Muhammad sent the sixty-odd families of his followers to Yathrib a few at a time, finally joining them in September of 622.
 
Yathrib now became the center of the new faith and the community came to be known as Medina (al Median)—the City.