ARTH 442 History of Islamic Art and Architecture - Dr David Simonowitz

Weaving together geography, history, archaeology, anthropology, architecture, the arts, and more, these handsomely designed, interdisciplinary volumes encompass the entire physical and cultural world of each civilization, evoking its unique spirit and vitality. Panoramic in scope, these volumes provide an overview of places and peoples through the centuries and are illustrated throughout with hundreds of striking and informative photographs and drawings. This volume is divided into three key sections:
Geographical/ethnographic background
Cultural history
A tour of present-day regions.
This volume details the transmission of Islamic culture from generation to generation and from state to state over the last 500 years.

As fascinating as a real visit to the world's famous museums and architectural sites, GARDNER'S ART THROUGH THE AGES: NON-WESTERN PERSPECTIVES gives you a comprehensive, beautifully illustrated tour of the world's great non-Western artistic traditions. A unique "scale" feature (accompanying the book's photographs of paintings and other artworks) will help you better visualize the actual size of the artworks shown in the book.

"Deals with all aspects of Islamic art and architecture ranging from the Middle East to Africa to Central, South, and East Asia and includes entries on artists, rulers, writers, ceramics, sculpture, metalwork, painting, calligraphy, textiles, and more"

"This 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 most imposing collections of arts from across the Muslim world."

"This illustrated book provides an 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."

Virtually all the masterpieces of Islamic art - the Alhambra, the Taj Mahal, and the Tahmasp Shahnama - were produced during the period from the Mongol conquests in the early thirteenth century to the advent of European colonial rule in the nineteenth. This beautiful book surveys the architecture and arts of the traditional Islamic lands during this era.
Conceived as a sequel to the The Art and Architecture of Islam: 650-1250, by Richard Ettinghausen and Oleg Grabar, the book follows the general format of the first volume, with chronological and regional divisions and architecture treated separately from the other arts. The authors describe over two hundred works of Islamic art of this period and also investigate broader social and economic contexts, considering such topics as function, patronage, and meaning.

From the supreme confidence of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem to the scores of exquisite buildings of Ottoman Istanbul; from the extraordinary virtuosity of Persian painting in the fifteenth century to the vivid ceramic tradition of Ottoman Iznik; Hillenbrand does justice to both the highlights and the ongoing evolution of the full range of Islamic arts. Supported by a glossary of Islamic terms, a time line, and maps, this book traces the architecture, calligraphy, book illumination, painting, ceramics, textiles, and metalwork of a vastly accomplished and influential civilization.

Issam El-Said pinpoints the rules of composition that form the basis of the geometric concepts of Islamic art. He then shows how intricate patterns are based on these basic principles. Fully illustrated in three colors to show the development of the patterns, this book offers an insight into how craftsmen and designers in the Muslim world achieved monumental feats of artistic expression using the simplest of tools.

"The evolution of book art and painting in the Islamic world is the product of diverse regions and periods. Islamic art flourished in the great cities and centers of learning of the ottoman Turks, the Iranian Qajars, and the later Indian Mughals, spreading across a region that extended from the Atlantic Ocean to China."

Practiced in all societies, gift exchange has a history as long as humanity. This gloriously illustrated catalogue is the first investigation of gift-giving and its impact on the development of art in the Islamic world. Presenting some 240 rare and costly works of art associated with gift exchanges among the courts of Islam, Byzantium, western Europe, and eastern Asia, the book provides a wide-ranging view of Islamic art and culture from the 8th through the 19th century.
At courts across the Islamic world, gift-giving often served as a nexus of art and diplomacy, religion, and interpersonal relations. The book examines the complex interplay between artistic production and gift-based patronage through numerous examples of deluxe, aesthetically pleasing objects either commissioned or repurposed as gifts. Tracing the unique histories of selected artworks, the book also explores how the exchange of luxury objects played a central role in the circulation, emulation, and assimilation of artistic forms within and beyond the Islamic world.

"The exhibits, which are of great cultural, religious and aesthetic importance, include Qur'ans, textiles, jewelled objects and hardstones, metalwork, ceramics and paintings, and offer a superb introduction to the fine and decorative arts of the Islamic world. Ranging in date from the ninth to the nineteenth century and covering an area from Spain and the Arab world to Persia and the Indian subcontinent, they are a vivid demonstration of the well-known Muslim tradition: 'Verily, God is beautiful and love all beauty'." "Authoritative essays by Islamic scholars, a map, glossary, an 145 colour photographs make this book an indispensable addition to the library of all who are interested in Islamic art and culture."

Cairo "s museums are home to some of the richest collection of Islamic art in the world. Long the seat of great dynasties, whose rulers and descendants both amassed and patronized works of art, Cairo "s status as one of the wealthiest and most populous cities of the medieval world is reflected in the exquisite arts and crafts that make up its collections, which expanded in the twentieth century through the purchase of private collections so that they now include not just the arts of the dynasties that made Cairo their capital, such as the Fatimids, Ayyubids, and Mamluks, but material from other important areas of the Islamic world, such as Iran and Turkey, as well.
Masterpieces of every medium are represented, including the decorative arts of ceramics, metalwork, textile, woodwork, glass, carved stone and ivory, and the art of the book. The objects vary from pieces made for purely secular purposes, many of them with blazons showing that they were the property of the great amirs of the time, to some of the choicest examples recovered from the architectural masterpieces that permeate Cairo "s landscape.

This volume covers modern Iran, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, and contains all the major articles on Persian art and architecture published by O'Kane between 1976 and 1994. Topics include individual monuments, Persian painting, and Islamic Persia's architectural heritage.

Contents:
What is Islamic architecture? / Ernst J. Grube --
Allah and eternity: mosques, madrasas and tombs / James Dickie (Yaqub Zaki) --
Architecture of power: palaces, citadels and fortifications / Oleg Grabar --
Trade and travel: markets and caravanserais / Eleanor Sims --
Architects, craftsmen and builders: materials and techniques / Ronald Lewcock --
Elements of decoration: surface, pattern and light / Dalu Jones --
Vernacular architecture: the house and society / Guy T. Petherbridge.

The Dome of the Rock, the beautiful Muslim shrine in the walled Old City of Jerusalem, was fully restored to its original state in the last half-century. Thus, this structure, sited on the third holiest spot on earth for Muslims, is at once a product of the seventh century and almost entirely the work of our own times--a paradox in keeping with the complexities and contradictions of history and religion, architecture and ideology that define this site.
This book tells the story of the Dome of the Rock, from the first fateful decades of its creation--on the esplanade built in the fourth decade B.C.E. for the Second Jewish Temple--to its engulfment in the clashes of the Crusades and the short-lived Christianization of all of Jerusalem, to its modern acquisition of different and potent meanings for Muslim, Christian, and Jewish cultures.
Oleg Grabar's presentation combines what we know of the building with the views of past observers and with the broader historical, cultural, and aesthetic implications of the monument. Primarily it is as a work of art that the Dome of the Rock stands out from these pages, understood for the quality that allows it to transcend the constrictions of period and perhaps even those of faith and culture. Finally, Grabar grapples with the question this monumental work of art so eloquently poses: whether the pious requirements of a specific community can be reconciled with universal aesthetic values.

The Arab philosopher Ibn Khaldun described Cairo under the Mamluks as "a city beyond imagination". The Mamluk sultans originated as a slave-based caste rose to rule in the mid-13th century. Accordingly, they designed their capital to be the heart of the Muslim world. It became the focus of their enormous patronage of art and architecture, the stage for their ceremonial rituals, and a memorial to their achievements. This history of Mamluk architecture spans three centuries and examines the monuments of the Mamluks in their social, political and urban context, during the period of their rule (1250-1517). The book displays the multiple facets of Mamluk patronage, and also provides a succinct discussion of the sixty key monuments built in Cairo by the Mamluk sultans.
The unique strength of Doris Abouseif's work lies in its scholarly yet engaging presentation of original material, diligently researched in the waqf (Islamic endowments) archives including architectural plans and personal records. A richly illustrated volume with colour photographs, plans and isometric drawings, it will be an essential reference work for scholars and students of the art and architecture of the Islamic world as well as art historians and historians of late medieval Islamic history.