[Redbook9:183][19910423:0920d]{The Nature of Islam [continued (3)]}[23rd April 1991]
19910423.0920
[continued]
*But whose cycle?
[See [Redbook9:190][19910426:1153b]{Modern Arab Art}[26th April 1991]]
*[See last previous ts journal entry, &ant]
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[Redbook9:183][19910423:0920c]{The Nature of Islam [continued]}[23rd April 1991]
19910423.0920
[continued]
I suspect it* may have something to do with the inability of those cultures which do not ‘begin’ at C to pursue a rotation which is balanced as between outer and inner circles – perhaps because they are stuck with a circle which is already in progress,| whose choices have already been made.
This is not altogether convincing: there is an implication in the circumstances and layout of the Quran** (which at some stage I shall have to read*** – perhaps back to front?) that Muhammad started under a g~ influence but fairly rapidly became embroiled in M~ and U~ activities, whose way of thinking found their way into the book. But this is still speculative.
I imagine that it would be extremely difficult if not impossible to affect the relative inner-to-outer rotation of of a cycle if one came to it at MU~.
*[See last previous ts journal entry]
**ref [[Redbook9:56-58][19910409:1239b]{The Quran}[9th April 1991]ff,] 56-58
[&ant?]
***[I did – but not back-to-front]
[continued]
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[Redbook9:182-183][19910423:0920b]{The Nature of Islam}[23rd April 1991]
19910423.0920
[continued]
*Why does the starting-point of Islam at c[irca] [2048]MU~ seem to characterise its entire cycle – why doesn’t it just circle round like cultures which ‘started’ at C? Well, that just seems to be the way it is – compare the attachment of Rome and of the U.S.A., both of which started at [2048]G~, to democratic and republican ideas (or at least to ideas of civilised behaviour towards people in the case of Imperial Rome).**
It is not quite enough to say that Islam is characterised by MU~*** at least up to soon after 1536[ce]: after all, Rome and the USA started at [2048]G~ and yet neither was or is particularly original in artistic terms.****
*{ref [[Redbook9:116][19910415:0840j]{[Islamic Art –] The Word (2) [continued (28)]}[15th April 1991],] 116,
[[Redbook9:118-119][19910415:0840m]{[Islamic Art –] Music [continued (3)]}[15th April 1991]&f?,] 119
(& see [[Redbook9:124][19910415:0840z]{[Islamic Art –] Visual Arts}[15th April 1991]&f,] 124-5
[[Redbook9:133-134][19910420:0953h]{Art Cycles (2)}[20th April 1991],] 133[:]
order of art)}
**[sic – for their time, perhaps!]
***{cf [[Redbook9:236-237][19910501:0800mm]{The Nature of the Romans}[1st May 1991],] 236}
****{But see USA’s postwar modern art?}
[& in fact USA’s postwar everything creative & innovative]
[continued]
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[Redbook9:182][19910423:0920]{Greek influence on Judeo-Christian thought}[23rd April 1991]
19910423.0920
‘This dramatic passage draws its inspiration from v[erse] 16 of 1 Ch[ronicles] 21:15-27 and possibly also from Homer (Iliad IV.443).’
*
* – N[ew] J[erusalm] B[ible]: 1073 (from Note L to Ws** 18:15)
**[Wisdom (of Solomon)]
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[Redbook9:182][19910422:1210]{A Thousand Years of Art?}[22nd April 1991]
.1210
A very speculative pattern begins to suggest itself:
*
*(Note how the period lengths decrease)<910423>
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[Redbook9:181][19910422:0825d]{Concentration and Disintegration [continued]}[22nd April 1991]
19910422.0825(Mon)
[continued]
During this [sic] black few days,* I could not work at the C[ircles] A[nalysis] & S[ynthesis] research. I remember this so well from school and while I was still living at home, when persecution by teachers and other boys (8-16) followed by my parents’ involvement of me in their marital problems (16-32!) pre-occupied my mind with anxiety ** and depression to such an extent that I could not concentrate on work. The clue may be in ‘could not concentrate’: the depression and anxiety had a dissolving, disintegrating effect on concentrated thought. In the later period my mind tended instead to wander into the sort of speculation found in Vol[ume]s I & II of this Journal: the fact that they may ultimately lead to something valuable in more than just the healing of myself, should not conceal the essentially fragmented nature of my thought at that time. Creativity may well involve the coalescence of such fragments. There were, of course, other interrelated factors contributing to my mental state.
*[See last previous ts entry]
**
[The asterisk is almost certainly not part of the diagram, since a similar single asterisk in the ms text, represented in the ts by a double asterisk(**), refers to it]
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[Redbook9:180-181][19910422:0825c]{Concentration and Disintegration}[22nd April 1991]
19910422.0825(Mon)
[continued]
*I had had a bad period,** mostly through over-sensitivity about finance, in which from Tuesday evening until Sunday morning I was filled with terrible resentment of [W] for not being tight enough with money – a feeling which I kept largely bottled up inside me, although she realised in the end. *** Just as the dream predicted, everything is now fine**** (it# may even have been due to a hamburger-and-chips fry-up we took the children to on Tuesday evening, not just in financial but in dietary terms).
*[Ref last previous ts entry]
**[as it were....]
***cf VIII: [[Redbook8:181][19910123:1501]{[Dream fragment:]The Girl in the Stream}[23rd January 1991] to? [Redbook8:182-184][19910123:1501c]{Crisis Revisited?}[23rd January 1991],] 181-182[?-184]
****There was a slight relapse on Tuesday evening, but the discussion has cleared the air <910426>
#[The negative feelings described above, presumably]
[continued]
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[Redbook9:180][19910422:0825b]{A Dream: Of a railway dome-car and a violent person}[22nd April 1991]
19910422.0825(Mon)
[continued]
A couple of nights ago* I dreamt (among other things) that I took a trip downhill on a railway line (on which London Underground trains also ran), in a private railcar (belonging to someone else) with 180-degree vision (rather like the O of earlier fiction, especially in dreams).** At the bottom I heard someone being violent towards [W] in a/the house. I ejected him from the front door but he kept coming back: every time I thumped him (not viciously) on the chest he was propelled away, but without threatening me he kept coming back. I then returned up the hill in the same railcar on the same railway line, to the point at which I had begun the dream.
*(Fri[day]-Sat[urday] night, I think)
**eg II [] …
(c[irca] 11/[19]80?)
[See next two ts journal entries]
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[Redbook9:180][19910422:0825]{Renaissance}[22nd April 1991]
19910422.0825(Mon)
‘The rebirth of interest in the culture and ideals of Greco-Roman Antiquity which we call the “Renaissance” is too wide a phenomenon to be defined solely in terms of the history of art: it embraces the study of law, language and literature, stagecraft and philosophy, as well as various antiquarian interests – epigraphy, numismatics, topography, and the collecting of antiquities.’*
**
* → [[Redbook9:184][19910423:0920]{Northern and Southern ‘Renaissance’}[23rd April 1991],] 184
**– E[ncyclopaedia of] V[isual] A[rt] 4:622
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[Redbook9:179][19910421:1410kkk]{[Islamic Art –] Late Arts [continued (11)]}[21st April 1991]
19910421:1410
[continued]
‘By the mid 19th century under Nasir al-Din Shah (1848-96) oil painting had been largely superseded in esteem by painting in lacquer in a similar naïve manner and with borrowings from Western art, on small portable objects such as bindings, mirror-cases, and pen-boxes, and also by enameling [sic] on gold and other metals.... Painting in all media declined during the second half of the 19th century into skilful pastiche. Nasir al-Din and his successor, the last Qajar Shah, Muzaffar al-Din (1896-1907) were unable to resist the prestige of Western art.’
[Basil Gray]
*
*– ibid [Encyclopaedia of Visual Arts 3:] 466
(end of Ch[apter])
[See [Redbook9:190][19910426:1153b]{Modern Arab Art}[26th April 1991]]
[↑]
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[Redbook9:179][19910421:1410jjj]{[Islamic Art –] Late Arts [continued (10)]}[21st April 1991]
19910421:1410
[continued]
‘Iran: The Qajar dynasty (1788-1907).
Agha Muhammad Khan, a chief of the Qajar tribe with its center at Astarabad, settled in Teheran as capital in 1788.* By the time of his assassination in 1796 he had established his rule all over Iran and the peace he imposed led quickly to a revival of manufacture and trade.’
**
*{2048R~1792}
**– ibid [Encyclopaedia of Visual Arts 3:] 465
[continued]
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[Redbook9:178][19910421:1410iii]{[Islamic Art –] Late Arts [continued (9)]}[21st April 1991]
19910421:1410
[continued]
‘The Safavid state was by then [1674]* already in disarray and declining. Sulayman was succeeded in 1694** by Husayn, a weak man unable to rally the state, assailed on every side. In 1722 the Afghan adventurer Mahmud boldly crossed the desert and attacked the capital with a small force. In October the city surrendered and was sacked by the invaders. A man of obscure origin, Nadir Shah, drove out the Afghans in 1728 and by 1730 had deposed the last of the Safavids and ascended the throne. In spite of brilliant military successes and his seizure of Delhi with *** the Mughal Emperor Muhammed Shah in 1739, Nadir Shah emerged as a cruel tyrant and his assassination in 1747 plunged the country again into chaos. These events and the immense damage caused to the industrial basis of Iran brought a complete break in her cultural history. The land fell into the power of several tribal chiefs.
****
*[Square brackets per ms]
**{GR~1664[ce]}
***?=
****– ibid [Encyclopaedia of Visual Arts 3:] 465
[Source text continues in next ts journal entry]
[continued]
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[Redbook9:178][19910421:1410hhh]{[Islamic Art –] Late Arts [continued (8)]}[21st April 1991]
19910421:1410
[continued]
‘One feature is common to binding and carpet design, the renewed presence of chinoiserie elements, especially the mythical animals, ch’i-lin,* dragon, and phoenix.’
**
*[A type of benevolent dragon-horse or similar creature]
**– ibid [Encyclopaedia of Visual Arts 3:] 465
[continued]
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[Redbook9:178][19910421:1410ggg]{[Islamic Art –] Late Arts [continued (7)]}[21st April 1991]
19910421:1410
[continued]
‘These [ceramic]* techniques continued into the 18th century, but in declining quality.
‘Far surpassing the pottery in value were the manufacturers of silk brocades and carpets.’
**
*[Square brackets per ms]
**– ibid [Encyclopaedia of Visual Arts 3:] 464
[continued]
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[Redbook9:177][19910421:1410fff]{[Islamic Art –] Late Arts [continued (6)]}[21st April 1991]
19910421:1410
[continued]
‘[The Lutfallah Mosque in Isfahan, built between 1602 and 1616]* is distinguished by its splendid tile work of polychrome painted tile (haft aurang)** and for the design of the interior of the saucer dome, over 59 f[ee]t (18 m[etres]) in diameter, laid out in a pattern of arabesque medallions radiating out from the centre in widening linked circles over an octagonal drum in which are set 16 windows which flood with light.’
***
*[Square brackets per ms]
**[sic – see [Redbook9:177][19910421:1410eee]{[Islamic Art –] Late Arts [continued (5)]}[21st April 1991]]
***– ibid [Encyclopaedia of Visual Arts 3:] 463
[continued]
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[Redbook9:177][19910421:1410fff]{[Islamic Art –] Late Arts [continued (6)]}[21st April 1991]
19910421:1410
[continued]
‘The reign of Shah Abbas the Great (1587-1629) marks a shift in the ethos, economy and cultural life of Iran. From being isolated and inward-looking, the country was led to accept the position of world power; the role of the Safavid house changed from one of religious leadership based on tribal support to a centralised monarchy with a regular army paid from by revenues from large crown demesnes and from the profits of monopolistic government workshops working for the export market. So the industrial arts – silk weaving, carpets, ceramics, arms and metalwork – came to the fore.’
*
*– ibid [Encyclopaedia of Visual Arts 3:] 462
*[continued]
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