ISLAMIC ART AND CULTURE { A RESOURCE FOR TEACHERS }

ISLAMIC ART AND CULTURE 

 

“Islamic art” is a label coined in the West in the
nineteenth century. Unlike “Christian art” or “Buddhist
art,” it does not describe art with a particular set of
religious imagery. In fact, Islamic art has few exclusively
religious symbols comparable to the Christian cross.
Instead, the term “Islamic art” designates all art,
religious or secular, that was produced in lands under
Muslim leadership. Its makers and its patrons might
be Muslim or not. In this packet we look at works
that span nearly a thousand years—from shortly
after the foundation of Islam in the seventh century
to the seventeenth century when the last two great
Islamic empires—the Ottoman and the Safavid—had
reached their peak. Although the defi nition of Islamic
art usually includes work made in Mughal India, it
is beyond the scope of this packet. The works we will
look at here come from as far west as Spain and as far
east as Afghanistan.

Naturally, within this span of time and space many variations and
styles occur. Yet, Islamic art remains somehow “recognizable”
throughout. In the West, the word “art” produces mental images of
paintings hung on walls or large-scale sculpture, but these (although
not unknown) are not the focus of Islamic art.


Rather, the most important outlets for artistic expression in the Islamic world were:
- architecture
- the arts of the book (calligraphy, manuscript illumination,
and bookbinding)
- the arts of the object (especially metalwork, ceramics, glass,
and textiles)
And each of these was ornamented with a particularly Islamic
vocabulary of surface decoration:
- calligraphy
- arabesques, scrolling patterns, and floral or plant designs
- geometric designs