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"Kalila and Dimna" or "The Fables of Bidpai" is one of the gems of world culture, having been translated through the centuries everywhere from China to Spain. "Kalila and Dimna", like the fables of Aesop or Lafontaine, are subtle and suggestive moral tales - a kind of repository of wisdom and understanding about the human condition. It was the most commonly illustrated medieval Islamic text. This book focuses on the group of seven Persian manuscripts from the second half of the 14th century, whi...

This handsome portfolio contains 10 fine art prints of David Roberts’ superb lithographs of ancient Egypt, selected from Egypt: Yesterday and Today (AUC Press, 1996).Between 1842 and 1849, on the basis of sketches made on the spot and aided by his excellent memory, Roberts produced the drawings that Louis Haghe turned into prints published by Francis Graham Moon. These lithographs appeared in the original hand-painted deluxe edition.Published here on high-quality paper and suitable for framing,...

Until 2008 the Jaharis Lectionary was a hidden treasure: an illuminated Byzantine manuscript that was almost entirely unknown, even to scholars. Superbly preserved, it is arguably the most important Byzantine work to come to the Metropolitan Museum’s renowned collection since the 1917 gifts of J. Pierpont Morgan.  It represents the apogee of Constantinopolitan craftsmanship around the year 1100. In this important study, John Lowden, a leading expert on Byzantine manuscripts, discusses his disc...

An examination of experimental cinema and media art from the Arabic-speaking world that explores filmmakers' creative and philosophical inventiveness in trying times. In this book, Laura Marks examines one of the world's most impressive, and affecting, bodies of independent and experimental cinema from the last twenty-five years: film and video works from the Arabic-speaking world. Some of these works' creative strategies are shared by filmmakers around the world; others arise from the particula...

An abundantly illustrated look at how queerness is performed within artistic practicePremodern archives from the Middle East show rich and diverse homoerotic worlds that were disrupted by the colonial imposition of Western models of sexuality. Andrew Gayed traces how contemporary Arab and Middle Eastern diasporic artists have remembered and reinvented these historical ways of being in their work in order to imagine a different present. Building on global art histories and transnational queer the...

Based on more than 20 years of original research in Europe, Israel, and the United States by artist Murray Zimiles, and accompanied by an essay by distinguished Judaica scholar Vivian B.Mann, this book is the first fully developed study of the secularization of Eastern European Jewish folk art traditions in America. Until recently, little was known in the United States about the creative work of European Jewish folk artists. The destruction of the material heritage of Eastern European Jews duri...

A new platform for contemporary art situated on the outskirts of Riyadh near the At-Turaif UNESCO World Heritage Site, the 2024 Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale, After Rain, features more than eighty artists of different generations, presents many contributions from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region, and includes newly commissioned projects and time-based works of art. This international gathering of artists is founded on a commitment to fostering dialogue between Saudi Arabia and other parts of...

The first-ever A–Z of the major modern and contemporary artists of the Middle East. The vibrant and varied art of the Middle East and North Africa is brought together in this beautifully illustrated book through the life and work of more than 250 artists, covering a 120-year period of creative activity from 1900 to the present day. Each of the eighty alphabetically arranged, feature-length biographies offers a critical analysis of an artist’s work and its cultural significance, as well as...

Levni's pictorial narrative of the Surname-i Vehbi, poet Vehbi's account of a festival organised in 1720 to commemorate the circumcision of four sons of Sultan Ahmed III, is undoubtedly one of the masterpieces of Ottoman art and possibly the last great example of illustrated Islamic manuscript. Preserved in the Topkapi Palace Museum in Istanbul, the work is illustrated with 137 paintings that recreate the personages, settings, and events of an extraordinarily lively and enchanting age known as t...

First published in 1994 and now available in paperback, an illustrated introduction to the art of Jordan, which provides an outline of Jordan's history and archaeology, with sections on different art forms ranging from the facade of Petra to modern folk jewellery.

This monumental work provides a comprehensive analytical history of the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Umayyad, and Early Abbasid mosaics in the Holy Land, spanning the second century b.c.e. to the eighth century c.e. Previous general studies of the Holy Land mosaics have focused on specific collections; in Mosaics of Faith, Rina Talgam sets out to demonstrate how mosaic art constructed cultural, religious, and ethnic identities in eras that shaped the visual expressions of three monotheistic re...

Many features of civilization originated in the lands we call the ancient Near East, a vast and varied area from Turkey to the Indus Valley of present-day Pakistan and from the Caucasus to the Arabian Peninsula. This essential guide for K-12 educators introduces the variety and diversity of art produced by the rich and complex cultures that flourished in this region during an equally vast time period, from the eighth millennium B.C. to the middle of the seventh century A.D. The fully illustrated...

Exploring prize textiles known as tiraz, whose meaning and materiality illuminate the interwoven communities of the medieval Islamic world Social Fabrics looks at tiraz-highly prized textiles enhanced with woven, embroidered, or painted inscriptions in Arabic-to trace the structure of medieval Egyptian society during a transformative period. It reveals a story as interwoven and complex as these delicate objects themselves. A foundational introduction to the topic, this exhibition catalogue comb...

Throughout their long history, the ancient Egyptians crafted luminous statues of bronze, copper, silver, and gold for use in interactions with their gods-from ritual dramas enacted in the inner sanctuaries of temples to festival processions and celebrations attended by the multitudes. This volume, which accompanies an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, is the first to focus on the art and significance of Egyptian metal statuary. Marshaling fresh insights to present a new appreciation...