{[Islamic Art –] Visual Arts [continued –] The Great Mosque at Damascus [continued]}[21st April 1991]

[Redbook9:151][19910421:1410d]{[Islamic Art –] Visual Arts [continued –] The Great Mosque at Damascus [continued]}[21st April 1991]

19910421:1410

[continued]

‘The surviving portions [of the mosaics in the Great Mosque at Damascus]* show buildings in classical style, but with fantastic detail, standing in park-like landscapes beside wide streams. These were believed by some to represent the Barada, always a favourite resort for the inhabitants of Damascus. Whether these views in fact represent the capitals of the world or rather the heavenly mansions of paradise [sic] remains unclear. Certainly there is no sign of fortified or enclosed buildings, so that the scene is always one of peace; while the absence not only of human but even of animal figures would at once set these apart from any Christian building. Evidently the intention was to produce an effect of overwhelming splendour; the intense blue and green foliage against a gold ground conveys palatial rather than religious feeling, pleasure rather than power. It has only a formal and not a structural relation to the architecture. **This is in general the norm to which Islamic art reverts (although there is on occasion strong emphasis on structural line, as in Seljuk architecture)’.

***

*[Square brackets per ms]

[See last previous ts journal entry]

**←cf [[Redbook9:150][19910421:1410b]{[Islamic Art –] Visual Arts [continued –] [Artistic Unity]}[21st April 1991],] 150

*** – ibid [Encyclopaedia of Visual Arts 3: 427]

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