An alternate approach to Islamic art emphasizing literary over historical contexts and reception over production in visual arts and music.

This richly illustrated book allows readers to identify the elements and themes of Islamic art forms, and to examine them in works of painting and metalwork, in calligraphy and manuscripts, ceramics, glass, wood, and ivory.

This richly illustrated book provides an unsurpassed overview of Islamic art and architecture from the seventh to the thirteenth centuries, a time of the formation of a new artistic culture and its first, medieval, flowering in the vast area from the Atlantic to India. Inspired by Ettinghausen and Grabar’s original text, this book has been completely rewritten and updated to take into account recent information and methodological advances. The volume focuses special attention on the development of numerous regional centers of art in Spain, North Africa, Egypt, Syria, Anatolia, Iraq, and Yemen, as well as the western and northeastern provinces of Iran. It traces the cultural and artistic evolution of such centers in the seminal early Islamic period and examines the wealth of different ways of creating a beautiful environment. The book approaches the arts with new classifications of architecture and architectural decoration, the art of the object, and the art of the book. With many new illustrations, often in color, this volume broadens the picture of Islamic artistic production and discusses objects in a wide range of media, including textiles, ceramics, metal, and wood. The book incorporates extensive accounts of the cultural contexts of the arts and defines the originality of each period. A final chapter explores the impact of Islamic art on the creativity of non-Muslims within the Islamic realm and in areas surrounding the Muslim world.

"The Islamic world has a rich artistic tradition, with particular strengths in calligraphy, illuminated manuscripts, architecture, and the decorative arts. This reference traces the development of Islamic art and architecture from the Umayyad dynasty to the present day. Readers will learn about the art of the Fatimids, Seljuqs, Mamluks, Mongols, Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals, and more. Eye-catching photographs of gorgeous mosques, delicate manuscript paintings, and colorful ceramics give readers glimpses of the works being discussed. A great resource both for those interested in art history and those hoping to learn more about the long, rich history of Islamic culture."

Islamic Art and Beyond is the third in a set of four volumes of studies on Islamic art by Oleg Grabar. Between them they bring together more than eighty articles, studies and essays, work spanning half a century by a master of the field. Each volume takes a particular section of the topic, the three other volumes being entitled: Early Islamic Art, 650-1100; Islamic Visual Culture, 1100-1800; and Jerusalem. Reflecting the many incidents of a long academic life, they illustrate one scholar's attempt at making order and sense of 1400 years of artistic growth. They deal with architecture, painting, objects, iconography, theories of art, aesthetics and ornament, and they seek to integrate our knowledge of Islamic art with Islamic culture and history as well as with the global concerns of the History of Art. In addition to the articles selected, each volume contains an introduction which describes, often in highly personal ways, the context in which Grabar's scholarship developed and the people who directed and mentored his efforts. The articles in the present volume illustrate how the author's study of Islamic art led him in two directions for a further understanding of the arts. One is how to define Islamic art and what impulses provided it with its own peculiar forms and dynamics of growth. Was it a faith or a combination of social, historical, and cultural events? And how has 'Islamic art' impacted on the contemporary arts of the Islamic world? The other issue is that of the meanings to be given to forms like domes, so characteristic of Islamic art, or to terms like symbol, signs, or aesthetic values in the arts, especially when one considers the contemporary world. The Islamic examples allow for the development of new intellectual positions for the history and criticism of the arts everywhere.

Presents a region-by-region history of the art of the Islamic world, looking at architecture, the art of the book, mosaics, pottery, textiles, and other decorative art forms.

Deconstructing the Myths of Islamic Art addresses how researchers can challenge stereotypical notions of Islam and Islamic art while avoiding the creation of new myths and the encouragement of nationalistic and ethnic attitudes. Despite its Orientalist origins, the field of Islamic art has continued to evolve and shape our understanding of the various civilizations of Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Situated in this field, this book addresses how universities, museums, and other educational institutions can continue to challenge stereotypical or homogeneous notions of Islam and Islamic art. It reviews subtle and overt mythologies through scholarly research, museum collections and exhibitions, classroom perspectives, and artists’ initiatives. This collaborative volume addresses a conspicuous and persistent gap in the literature, which can only be filled by recognizing and resolving persistent myths regarding Islamic art from diverse academic and professional perspectives. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, museum studies, visual culture, and Middle Eastern studies.

The transformation of Islamic architecture and ornament during the eleventh and twelfth centuries signaled profound cultural changes in the Islamic world. Yasser Tabbaa explores with exemplary lucidity the geometric techniques that facilitated this transformation, and investigates the cultural processes by which meaning was produced within the new forms. Iran, Iraq, and Syria saw the development of proportional calligraphy, vegetal and geometric arabesque, muqarnas (stalactite) vaulting, and other devices that became defining features of medieval Islamic architecture. Ultimately, the forms and themes described in this book shaped the development of Mamluk architecture in Egypt and Syria, and by extension, the entire course of North African and Andalusian architecture as well. These innovations developed and were disseminated in a highly charged atmosphere of confrontation between the Seljuk and post-Seljuk proponents of the traditionalist Sunni revival and their main opponents in Fatimid Egypt. These forms stood as visual signs of allegiance to the orthodox Abbasid caliphate and of difference from the heterodox Fatimids. Tabbaa proposes that their rapid spread throughout the Islamic world operated within a system of reciprocating, ceremonial gestures, which conveyed a new and formal language that helped negotiate the gap between the myth of a unified Sunni Islam and its actual political fragmentation. In subject matter and approach, The Transformation of Islamic Art during the Sunni Revival makes original contributions to the study of art, revealing that this relatively neglected sector of medieval art and architecture is of critical importance for reevaluating the entire field of Islamic studies. It challenges the essentialist and positivist approaches that still permeate the study of Islamic art, and offers a historical and semiotic alternative for exploring meaning within ruptures of change.

This classic work on the nature of early Islamic art has now been brought up to date in order to take into consideration material that has recently come to light. In a new chapter, Oleg Grabar develops alternate models for the formation of Islamic art, tightens its chronology, and discusses its implications for the contemporary art of the Muslim world. Reviews of the first edition: "Grabar examines the possible ramifications of sociological, economic, historical, psychological, ecological, and archaeological influences upon the art of Islam. . . [He] explains that Islamic art is woven from the threads of an Eastern, Oriental tradition and the hardy, surviving strands of Classical style, and [he] illustrates this web by means of a variety of convincing and well-chosen examples."--Art Bulletin "A book of absorbing interest and immense erudition. . . All Islamic archaeologists and scholars will thank Professor Grabar for a profound and original study of an immense and complex field, which may provoke controversy but must impress by its mastery and charm by its modesty."--Times Literary Supplement "Oleg Grabar, in this book of exceptional subtlety and taste, surveys and extends his own important contributions to the study of early Islamic art history and works out an original and imaginative approach to the elusive and complex problems of understanding Islamic art."--American Historical Review

This is the first book in the English language to deal with the spiritual significance of Islamic art including not only the plastic arts, but also literature and music. Rather than only dealing with the history of the various arts of Islam or their description, the author relates the form, content, symbolic language, meaning, and presence of these arts to the very sources of the Islamic revelation. Relying upon his extensive knowledge of the Islamic religion in both its exoteric and esoteric dimensions as well as the various Islamic sciences, the author relates Islamic art to the inner dimensions of the Islamic revelation and the spirituality which has issued from it. He brings out the spiritual significance of the Islamic arts ranging from architecture to music as seen, heard, and experienced by one living within the universe of the Islamic tradition. In this work the reader is made to understand the meaning of Islamic art for those living within the civilization which created it.