Search results

Mosques are among the greatest architectural feats and have a profound beauty: their spiritual purpose adds to their mystery and lustre. This visually stunning volume illustrates the development of the basic mosque structural and decorative elements through sixty examples including the most venerated, such as the Great Mosque of Cordoba, Spain; the Imam Mosque of Isfahan, Iran; and Istanbul s Suleymaniye Mosque along with such innovative new expressions as Doha s Abu al-Qabib Mosque. Mosques fr...

The Zoroastrians are the followers of the Iranian Prophet Spitaman Zarathushtra. They entered recorded history in 550 BCE and for nearly 1,000 years their religion flourished as the imperial religion of three great Iranian empires. During this period, Zoroastrianism was a dominant religion, and its beliefs influenced Judaism, Christianity and later Islam. The vast extent of their empire brought the Zoroastrians in contact with people of different races and traditions. Their willingness to absorb...

Princeton’s Great Persian Book of Kings presents the first comprehensive examination of a beautifully decorated yet relatively unknown manuscript of the Shahnama (Book of Kings), created in 1589–90 in the flourishing cultural center of Shiraz. Held by Princeton University and called the Peck Shahnama after its donor, the work ranks among the finest intact 16th-century Persian manuscripts in the United States.   Composed more than one thousand years ago, the epic poem Shahnama narrates the stor...

World renowned for its collection of Islamic art, the al-Sabah Collection in Kuwait also houses an important collection of ancient art. Splendors of the Ancient East presents a selection of ancient artefacts from the al-Sabah Collection, most of them reproduced for the first time. This selection is united by the personal vision of Sheikh Nasser Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah and his wife, Sheikha Hussah Sabah al-Salem al-Sabah. This vision is informed by a love of the beauty of these objects and an int...

A fully illustrated catalogue of the metal objects grouped by material and function, uncovered in the museum's excavations at the medieval site of Nishapur in North-eastern Iran.

Pakistan-born, New York-based artist Huma Bhabha (born 1962) makes fragile sculptures and assemblages composed from detritus, construction materials and found objects. This first survey of her work contains a wealth of full-color illustrations, an interview with Julie Mehretu and an essay by Thomas McEvilley.

Considering the paradoxical position of al-raqs al-baladi or “belly dance” in Egyptian social life, as both a vibrant and a contested cultural form, this issue of Cairo Papers in Social Science considers the impact of wider socio-cultural and political forces on the marginalization of professional performers, on the one hand, and in defining the parameters for non-professional performances on the other hand. Through interviews with professional and non-professional female dancers in Egypt, it ex...

This book documents the Persian - European artistic dialogue over four centuries. In particular it presents work by seven contemporary artists from Tehran and thus provides an insight into a new modern Persia in exchange with the global art world. At the same time the reader is offered a fresh view at ancient art shown in contrasting juxtaposition. Essays by Rudolph P. Matthee, Cyrus Ala'i, Birgitt Borkopp-Restle, Paulina Banas, Michael Chagnon, Gary Schwarz, Jennifer Scarce, Claudia Swann, Susa...

In early June 1902, John Peters, an American theologian, and Hermann Thiersch, a German classical scholar, were alerted to the discovery of two painted burial caves at Marisa/Beit Jibrin, less than 40 miles (62 km) by road southwest from Jerusalem. Tomb robbers had, a short time previously, forced their way into the burial chambers and caused damage to their fabric. Realising that these splendid tombs dated to about 200 BCE and the importance of their painted interiors, the two scholars immediat...

This second volume of Basil Robinson's Studies concentrates on Persian manuscript illumination, beginning with six studies of artists who worked in this medium. There then follows twenty-two studies of individual manuscripts, from the fourteenth century onwards.

A comprehensive overview of more than two decades of Huma Bhabha’s prolific and multidisciplinary output in sculpture, drawing, and photography Huma Bhabha (b. 1962 in Karachi) is known for sculptures depicting the human figure fashioned from materials ranging from clay, brick, and wood to Styrofoam, bronze, found objects, and construction materials. Such works reveal her myriad influences, including horror films, science fiction, ancient artifacts, religious reliquaries, and Neo-Expressionism....

Among the greatest and least understood areas of art is that of the Islamic nations and peoples. Robert Irwin, an expert in the arts of Islam and a compelling writer, takes the reader deep into the cultures in which some of the world's most splendid art was created. Working thematically, he surveys the refined and exquisite arts of porcelain, enamel, manuscript illumination, metalwork, calligraphy, textiles - and more - within a larger picture of a powerful faith, a profound tradition and a magn...

A new examination of the history of ceramic art, spanning ancient to modern times, emphasizing its traditions, materials, and methods of makingConcise but comprehensive, Ceramic Art brings together the voices of art historians, conservators, and artists to tell the history of making art from fired clay. The story spans history and continents, examining the global traditions of ceramists that range from pre-Columbian Peruvian artisans to contemporary African studio potters.The volume shows how hu...

The selection of sacred art objects including tabernacles, plates, bottles, bibs, votive, crosses show the high technical level of the Greek craftsmen. Precious metals, like gold and silver, beautifully decorated with carvings, chisels and shapes embossed and adorned with precious stones like rubies and sapphires, are analyzed in terms of historical and artistic. Each object is recognized style often characterized by traditional Greek and Byzantine style more properly Islamic, as well as Western...

Nur: Light in Art and Science in the Islamic World explores the use and significance of light in Islamic art and science, revealing how light is a unifying motif in Islamic civilizations across the globe. Taking its starting point from the Arabic word for light, both in its physical and metaphysical sense, Nur is divided into two principal sections. The first is devoted to art and includes manuscripts illuminated with gold and colored pigments, luster-ware ceramics, metal objects with gold and...

From the Alhambra to the Taj Mahal, from the Dome of the Rock to the ever evolving art of calligraphy, Barbara Brend traces the development of classic Islamic art from the seventh through the twentieth century.The term "Islamic art" suggests a unity of style and purpose, and these works are in fact instantly recognizable for their subtlety of line and sumptuous detail. The Islamic world--from Arabia to North Africa and Spain, from Turkey to Central Asia and India--has a shared cultural heritage...

Alef Is for Allah is the first groundbreaking study of the emotional space occupied by children in modern Islamic societies. Focusing primarily on visual representations of children from modern Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan, the book examines these materials to investigate concepts such as innocence, cuteness, gender, virtue, and devotion, as well as community, nationhood, violence, and sacrifice. In addition to exploring a subject that has never been studied comparatively before, Alef Is for Allah...

How do we know Islamic art? What tells us that images and artifacts are products of the Muslim world, a culture that has historically extended from Spain to Southeast Asia and spanned a period from A.D. 622 to our day? This exquisitely and extensively illustrated book allows readers to identify those elements and themes that define art forms as Islamic, and to examine them in works of painting and metalwork, in calligraphy and manuscripts, ceramics, glass, wood, and ivory comprising one of the m...