{[Islamic Art –] Visual Arts [continued –] Early and Middle Periods of Islamic Art [continued (4)]}[20th April 1991]

[Redbook9:131][19910420:0953e]{[Islamic Art –] Visual Arts [continued –] Early and Middle Periods of Islamic Art [continued (4)]}[20th April 1991]

19910420:0953

[continued]

*‘Besides political and ethnic confusion, there was also religious and cultural confusion during the middle period. The 10^th century [ce],** for example, witnessed the transformation of the Shiite heterodoxy into a major political and possibly cultural phenomenon, while the extraordinary development taken [sic] by the personal and social mysticism known as Sufism*** modified enormously the nature of Muslim piety.

‘Culturally the most significant development was perhaps that of Persian literature **** as a highly original new verbal expression existing alongside the older Arabic literary tradition.

#

*[Text continues from last previous ts journal entry]

**{2048[ce]U~A~896[ce]|A~1025[ce]}

cf Mid11thc[entury ce] The Great Schism between Eastern and Western Churches (2048A~1024CE)

& cf c[irca]931BCE Schism of Israel and Judah (2048A~1024BCE)

***(?cf the Sufi ‘Arc of Ascent’)

****(cf schisms above?)

#– ibid [Encyclopaedia Britannica 22:] 84-85

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{[Islamic Art –] Visual Arts [continued –] Early and Middle Periods of Islamic Art [continued (3)]}[20th April 1991]

[Redbook9:131][19910420:0953d]{[Islamic Art –] Visual Arts [continued –] Early and Middle Periods of Islamic Art [continued (3)]}[20th April 1991]

19910420:0953

[continued]

‘Middle period

‘The middle period in the development of Islamic art extends roughly from the year 1000[ce] to 1500[ce],* when** a strong central power*** with occasional regional political independence was replaced by a bewildering mosaic of overlapping dynasties. Ethnically this was the time of major Turkish and Mongol invasions that brought into the Muslim world new peoples and institutions. At the same time, Berbers, Kurds and Iranians, who had been within the empire since the beginning of Islam, began to play far more effective historical and cultural roles, short-lived for the Kurds, but uniquely important for the Iranians.

****

*2048A~1024|J~1280|G~1536

**ie c[irca]1000[ce](ff?)

***ie c[irca]634[ce ] - c[irca]1000[ce]

****– ibid [Encyclopaedia Britannica 22:] 84-85

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{[Islamic Art –] Visual Arts [continued –] Early and Middle Periods of Islamic Art [continued]}[20th April 1991]

[Redbook9:130][19910420:0953c]{[Islamic Art –] Visual Arts [continued –] Early and Middle Periods of Islamic Art [continued]}[20th April 1991]

19910420:0953

[continued]

*‘The second** complication derives from the fact that Muslim conquest hardly ever destroyed former civilisations with its own established creativity [sic].*** Material culture, therefore, continued as before, and archaeologically it is almost impossible to distinguish between pre-Islamic and early Islamic artifacts. Paradoxical though it may sound, there is an early Islamic Christian art of Syria and Egypt, and in many other regions the parallel existence of a Muslim and of a non-Muslim art continued for centuries. What did happen during early Islamic times, however, was the establishment of a dominant new taste, and it is the nature and character of this taste that has to be explained. It occurred first in Syria and Iraq, the two areas with the largest influx of Muslims and with the two successive capitals of the empire, Damascus under the Umayyads and Baghdad under the early Abbasids. From Syria and Iraq this new taste spread in all directions and adapted itself to local conditions and local materials, thus creating considerable regional and chronological variations in early Islamic art.’

****

This sounds like the pattern of a political impulse successfully grafting itself onto an existing major cycle.

*[Text continues from last previous ts journal entry]

**[See last previous ts journal entry]

***?=

**** – ibid [Encyclopaedia Britannica 22:] 76

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{[Islamic Art –] Visual Arts [continued –] Early and Middle Periods of Islamic Art}[20th April 1991]

[Redbook9:129-132][19910420:0953b]{[Islamic Art –] Visual Arts [continued –] Early and Middle Periods of Islamic Art}[20th April 1991]

19910420:0953

[continued]

‘Early period: The Umayyad and Abbasid Dynasties

‘Of all the recognizable periods of Islamic art, this is by far the most difficult one to explain properly, even though it is quite well documented. There are two reasons for this difficulty. On the one hand, it was a formative period, a time when new forms were created that identify the practical and aesthetic ideals of the new culture. Such periods are difficult to define when, as in the case of Islam, **|there was no artistic need inherent to the culture itself.|**

***

*(634 - ↓1041CE)

(going back a bit)

2048M~512[ce]|U~768[ce]|{A~1024[ce]

**|{NB}|**

*** – ibid [Encyclopaedia Britannica 22:] 76

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{Scales}[20th April 1991]

[Redbook9:129][19910420:0953]{Scales}[20th April 1991]

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Although the idea* that an inter-national [sic] conflict might be M~ on a national level but G~ on a regional level is neat, I am not sure that it is theoretically sound. If the root of M~ and G~ ** phenomena in history lies primarily in the concentrated or diffused behaviour of individuals, one would not expect the expression of that behaviour to appear differently on different scales, nor would one expect the different degrees (M~ and G~) to be expressed in the same individual behaviour, on international and regional levels respectively, as invasion and civil war.***

*ref [] above

(& eg Vol[ume] VIII [])

**(Haven’t quite woken up yet – Saturday a.m.)

[– to explain various crossings-out and insertions, presumably]

***But what of the type of regional international war? – eg in 18^th century Europe, the difference between a war of conquest and a quarrel over border territories, influence, or trade. <910421>

{See [[Redbook9:174][19910421:1410#]{The Late Period [of Islam]}[21st April 1991],] 174}

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{[Islamic Art –] Visual Arts [continued –] Development of Styles}[15th April 1991]

[Redbook9:128][19910415:0840ee]{[Islamic Art –] Visual Arts [continued –] Development of Styles}[15th April 1991]

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[continued]

‘A second point of definition concerns the question of whether there was an early Islamic style or [whether there were] perhaps even several styles in some sort of succession. The fascinating fact is that there is a clear succession only in those artistic features that are Islamic inventions – non-figurative ornaments and ceramics. For it is only in development of these features that one can assume to* find **|the conscious search for form that can create a period style.|** Elsewhere, especially in palace art, the Muslim world sought to relate itself to an earlier and more universal tradition of princely art; its monuments, therefore, are less Islamic than typological. In the new art of the Muslim bourgeoisie, however, uniquely Islamic artistic phenomena began to evolve.’

***

*(sic)

**|NB|**

***– ibid [Encyclopaedia Britannica 22:] 84

[Continued in ts journal entry after next]

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{[Islamic Art –] Visual Arts [continued –] The Dome of the Rock (1)}[15th April 1991]

[Redbook9:126-127][19910415:0840dd]{[Islamic Art –] Visual Arts [continued –] The Dome of the Rock (1)}[15th April 1991]

19910415.0840

[continued]

‘… The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem... is a unique building. Completed in 691[ce], this masterwork of Islamic architecture is the earliest major Islamic monument. Its octagonal plan, use of a high dome, and building techniques are hardly original, although its decoration is unique. Its purpose, however, is what is most remarkable about about the building. Since the middle of the 8^th century,* the Dome of the Rock has become the focal centre of the most mystical event in the life of the Prophet: ** his ascension into heaven from the rock around which the building was erected. According to an inscription preserved since the erection of the dome, however, it would seem that the building did not originally commemorate the prophet’s ascension but rather the Christology*** of Islam and its relation to Judaism. It seems preferable, therefore, to interpret the Dome of the Rock as a victory monument of the new faith’s ideological and religious claim on a holy city and on all the religious traditions attached to it.’

****

#

#*

#**

*{2048U~768[ce]}

**{? – cf [[Redbook9:148-150][19910420:0953nn]{~The Dome of the Rock (2)}[20th April 1991],] 149}

***{See [[[Redbook9:148-150][19910420:0953nn]{~The Dome of the Rock (2)}[20th April 1991],]] 149}

****– ibid [Encyclopaedia Britannica 22:] 79

#– ibid [Encyclopaedia Britannica 22:79]

#*{See description [[[Redbook9:148-150][19910420:0953nn]{~The Dome of the Rock (2)}[20th April 1991],]] 148}

#**{cf [[[Redbook9:356-][19910511:1817#]{The Poussin Circle}[15th April 1991],]] 359}

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{[Islamic Art –] Visual Arts [continued –] The Mosque}[15th April 1991]

[Redbook9:126][19910415:0840cc]{[Islamic Art –] Visual Arts [continued –] The Mosque}[15th April 1991]

19910415.0840

[continued]

‘There is no prohibition against representation of living things, and not a single Quranic passage refers clearly to the Mosque,* eventually to become the most characteristically Muslim religious building. In the simple, practical, and puritanical milieu of early Islam, aesthetic or visual questions simply did not arise.’

**

*{cf churches not mentioned in the Gospels?}

**– ibid [Encyclopaedia Britannica 22:] 75

[continued]

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{Visual Arts [continued –] Art Cycles (1) [continued]}[15th April 1991]

[Redbook9:126][19910415:0840bb]{Visual Arts [continued –] Art Cycles (1) [continued]}[15th April 1991]

19910415.0840

[continued]

In theory, the development of a visual art forbidden that representation of living creatures* – and particularly Man – without which Christian art is inconceivable, may clarify [sic] the changes of the basic artistic impulse through the cycle.

*[See last previous ts journal entry]

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{Visual Arts [continued –] Art Cycles (1)}[15th April 1991]

[Redbook9:124-125][19910415:0840aa]{Visual Arts [continued –] Art Cycles (1)}[15th April 1991]

19910415.0840

[continued]

When I interrupted my rapid journey through the Visual Arts of Europe, just before the Renaissance,* to make a detour into Islam,** it was with the idea that the influence of Islam must be allowed for in the history of Europe. But it is beginning to seem as though that influence is less than I expected. On the other hand, Islamic and Christian cultures are definitely interlinked and interwoven; and comparison of the two may well illuminate the natural sequence of patterns, particularly in the arts, which may or may not be describable in terms of C[ircles] A[nalysis &] S[ynthesis].

For example, an art without living things may initially be compared with the early, geometrical stages of the art cycles of antiquity,*** which may turn out to characterise the first quarter of the rotation of a long cultural cycle (and to be prefigured by the abstract art which ends the previous cycle). In the second quarter of an outer circle one might expect formularised representation, relaxing in the third quarter into a naturalism (and technical mastery) which reaches its peak at around G~ff. Not long after, the breakdown of the cycle may begin to manifest itself in various ways: baroque fantasy, romanticism, ‘dead’ realism (mastery of form without spirit), experiment, and abstract art. I am not sure what the order of this (incomplete) list ought in theory to be.

*[See [Redbook8:350][19910315:1000tt][Gothic Art (3) [continued (22):]] European art in the 15^th century [ce] [continued (9)][15th March 1991]]

**[See [Redbook8:351][19910316:1612]{Arabian Islam}[16th March 1991]]

***[See above, []]

****{See [[Redbook9:133][19910420#]{Art Cycles (2)}[20th April 1991],] 133;

[[Redbook9:9][19910326:2315b]{Fascism and Art [(1)]}[26th March 1991],] 9,

[[Redbook9:19][19910331:1706b]{Fascism and Art (2)}[31st March 1991],] 19}

{& VIII.[[Redbook8:278][19910221:1142g]{Byzantine Art [continued (3)]}[21st February 1991],] 278 re? ‘idealised’art at M~-U~}

[& NB [Redbook8:277-283][19910221:1142f]{Byzantine Art: Iconoclasm}[21st February 1991]]

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{[Islamic Art –] Visual Arts}[15th April 1991]

[Redbook9:124][19910415:0840z]{[Islamic Art –] Visual Arts}[15th April 1991]

19910415.0840

[continued]

‘… Even if there are ambiguous examples, most observers can recognize a flavour, a mood in Islamic visual arts that is distinguishable from what is known in East Asia (China, Korea, and Japan) or in the Christian West. This mood or flavour has been called decorative,* for it seems at first glance to emphasise an immense complexity of surface effects without apparent meanings attached to the visible motifs. But it has other characteristics as well; it is often colourful, both in architecture and in objects; it avoids representations of living things;** it gives much prominence to the work of artisans*** and counts among its masterpieces not merely works of architecture or of painting but also the creations of weavers, potters and metal workers.**** The problem is whether these uniquenesses of Islamic art, when compared to other artistic traditions, are the result of the nature of Islam or of some other factor of series of factors.’

#

*{cf G~R~?}

**{?}

***{U}

****{U~}

# – ibid [Encyclopaedia Britannica 22:] 74

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{[Islamic Art –] Dance and Theatre [continued (5)]}[15th April 1991]

[Redbook9:123][19910415:0840y]{[Islamic Art –] Dance and Theatre [continued (5)]}[15th April 1991]

19910415.0840

[continued]

*‘Among the Shiites the passion play was regularly performed, by both professional and amateur actors. The performances always took place during the first 10 days of the month of Muharram (the first in the Muslim year), the period when the suffering and death of the descendants and relatives of the fourth Caliph Ali were commemorated. For generations this largely theatrical event served as a focal point of the year, gripping audiences in total involvement with its blend of symbolism and realism.’

**

*(ref [[Redbook9:121-122][19910415:0840v]{[Islamic Art –] Dance and Theatre [continued (3)]}[15th April 1991],] 121-2↑)

**– ibid [Encyclopaedia Britannica 22: 70]

(& see ibid [Encyclopaedia Britannica 22:] 72 for details, eg people march through the streets, wounding themselves, before the plays).

{cf G~-R~ (eg T[arot]XII + T[arot]XIII)}

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{[Islamic Art –] Dance and Theatre [continued (5)]}[15th April 1991]

[Redbook9:123][19910415:0840x]{[Islamic Art –] Dance and Theatre [continued (5)]}[15th April 1991]

19910415.0840

[continued]

‘… the month of fasting, Ramadan (the sacred ninth month of the Muslim year).’

*

*– ibid [Encyclopaedia Britannica 22: 70]

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