8+-+Islamic+Art



__**﻿ ISLAMIC ART **__ __**﻿ **__ Just a little note... (saw) and (as) are both arabic words that are transliterated and then abbreviated, and it's respectful to put those honorifics after a prophet's name.

The Islamic Period: It was during around the time period of 610 CE when a merchant named Muhammad (saw) descended from a cave located in Arabia while deep in thought and meditation, bearing the scriptures of the new religion of Islam. However, it wasn't until Muhammad's (saw) death in 632 CE when the art of Islam truly did flourish.Islamic art pretty much went wherever the religion went, including countries such as Arabia, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Persia, and Afghanistan.This chapter follows after the art of all and each of these places, each one as different as the next one. Though all of the pieces throughout this phase are different, they have the same meaning behind them when it comes to spirituality. For example, take the representation of figures. Muslims highly discourage anybody from religious texts to be portrayed, therefore, they are not shown. Be aware that Muslims also highly discourage that Muhammad (saw) be shown. In order to fill up the missing space for these representations, Islamic artists filled thier mediums with geometric complex designes and vines proturding here and there, knows as arabesques .



__EARLY ISLAMIC ART__: Art during this period revolved around the time of the early caliphates, who took control spiritually after Muhammad (saw) died. The art of this period has more architecture, ceramics and contains pieces of calligraphy  that were intricately made with saying and verses,cometimes. It is also more spiritual when it comes to content as well. Architecture was mainly composed of shrines and mosques, which were both centers for worship, which were made so intricately with fine details and different kinds of arches. The political center of the Muslim world had changed from the Arabian peninsula to a city called Damascus, located in Syria. The architecture that could be found here was reflected and somewhat based off the principles of that of Roman, Byzantine and Mediterranean architecture due to the fact that all of these places were the nearby countries. **ARCHITECTURE**: During the time of the Ummayyad caliphs, they ignored about what the Prophet had to say and made extravagant mosques <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;"> and buildings for themselves. These buildings would have exotic human animal in mosaics, stucco, and paintings. Some w<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;"> ould bear swimming pools, baths and domed private rooms and apartments. On eof these later domed palaces was found in Mshatta, Jordan.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;">In Jerusalem, Dome of the Rock can also be found. Dome of the Rock was based on Roman and Byzantine architecture. However, unlike the other models that it was based on, this Dome of the Rock had a golden dome over it when the other models had left it plain. The interior and exterior of the Dome of the Rock is an octagon inside of an octagon, the exterior holding the usual arches. Inscriptions of the Koran and intricate designs lace the exterior of the outside while verneers and moaics are found on the inside. However, in order to read the Koranic verses, the veiwer has to travel clockwise and then counterclockwise from the interior.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;">As for the rock part, it has a lot of spiritual meaning behind it due to the fact that it is the same site where it was told that it was where Muhammad (saw) ascended to the presence of God during the night, and also the same site where Abraham (as) was about to sacrifice his son Isaac (as) as well as the place where Solomon (as) had built his temple, making it special and important to Christians and Jews as wells
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;">Mshatta is very different in comparison to the other palaces that were built. For example, this one contained a frieze to the entranceway. Mshatta, unlike the others, was never completed either. It was also munumentally huge, being 470 feet on each side. It's walls and gates were surrounded by remains of Roman architecture, mainly towers and bastions. The frieze extends to a band that extends to 16 feet, containting the intricate arabsques. A large rossette is in the middle of the frieze, and some Persian motifs found are birds, urns, and candlesticks, as well as the Tree of Life.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;">Ancient mosques usually were made of basic components, one being <span style="background-color: #86dff9; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;">minarets <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;">, which were were huge towers where a muezzin (person who calls attention to prayer) would announce when to come. The direction of Mecca is usually opposite from the minaret, and the direction is called qibla. The reason as to why it points there is because the Kaaba is there, which greatly reflects on the geometric shape of Islamic art.In the qibla wall, a <span style="background-color: #86dff9; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;">mihrab <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;"> would also be there, which is basically a wall with niches or indents in it that would be equivalent to an apse in a church or thethe shrine for the Torah scrolls in a synagogue. Arches were also a big thing in architecture as well. There were two kinds, shown in the picture, horshoe and pointed (ignore the ogival) One thing interesting about the arches is that in modern day prayer rugs, the shape of the mihrab is mimisked as the center of the rug. Prayer rugs, also known as <span style="background-color: #86dff9; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;">carpets for worship <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;">, are mats that Muslims pray on. They serve as sort of something clean to stand on and prostrate in. <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;">Another mosque, Mosque Cordoba, located in Spain, was built upon a church that was in Cordoba. Now, the Abassid dynasty ruled, forcing the Umayyad out. However, this didn't stop them from continuing on and conquering.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;">The Ummayad's conquered Spain, and had built there mosque by recycling many old parts of the church, including a series of columns that were placed in a hypostyle prayer hall.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;">This was the beginning of the use of horseshoe arches in Islamic art, which were used occasionally in Roman times and favored by Spain's Pre-Islamic rulers, also referred to as Visigoths. [[image:http://www.bugbog.com/images/galleries/spain_pictures/Cordoba/Mezquita-exterior-wall.jpg width="371" height="225" align="right" caption="Mosque of Cordoba exterior"]]
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;">Cordoba later on became the most popular site for arts and commercial affairs. It surpassed Euro-Chistian cities economically, science, literature and philosophy.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;">Later on, after the Umayyad Dynasty fell, a man name Al-Hakam II made costly renovations to it. He created a new mihrab, added new mosaics and more to it.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;">Sometimes, the mosque would be less significant in looks. In this case, the Malwiya Minaret, part of the Great Mosque located in Samarra would be the one to take the looks away from the mosque. Though the mosque is quite intricate as well, but the minaret is so unique because no other minaret stands the way this one does. This one has slopes for one, that spiral around the circular structure. At the top, arches are the windows that allow the muezzin to call for his prayer. In the picture, you can even see the small man walking downt he huge distance. As for the height, the Muslims of this time period likes the fact that it was so high up because it gave them the feeling that the call to prayer was coming from the sky itself.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;">**CALLIGRAPHY**: <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;">Calligraphy that was done were usally in the Arabic script form of kufic. Calligraphy was basically Arabic script. Kufic was a simplified Arabic text that was angular, but also the earliest. Arabic is read from right to left, and most characters of the arabic alphabet take on different forms depending on where it is in the word, initial, medial or final. During that time, it was custom to learn the entire Koran by heart...that's about one hundred and nine pages of arabic. Using their memories, verses, usually three to five lines of the hundreds, would be painted on a ceramic vessel, or placed on coins. Due to the fact that this kind of calligraphy was the most glorious, people that were able to do this were considered the highest of artists in the society. Eventually, calligraphy moved on to the kind of material that was used. Vellum was the material that the Koran was written down on, and later on used for calligraphy, and as time passed, so did the scripts. Eventually there were more than twenty kinds of scripts.

__**<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;">LATER ISLAMIC ART: **__ <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;">Eventually, like all other dynasties, the Abbsids began to slow down and died out. After this, the shift of power went to the Turkish culture. However, the Turkish Muslims were beginning to become less enient when it came to displaying faces. They did begin to portray faces, but not Muhammads' (saw). One example of this is The Prophet Muhammad (saw) and his Companions Traveling to the Fair, (sorry no picture was found. It's in the textbook pg. 307) The Trusk weren't being very careful of not showing the faces of the companions of the Prophet Muhammad (saw) but they do keep Muhammad's (saw) face covered. They show him all in white, as well as his outline, with few details showing the turban he wore or the long robe. However, before that, almost no record of humans have been shown. For example, take Shroud of Saint Josse. This was a silk textile that was used during the early Islamic art period, and you can see how no humans are shown. However, there is some contextual meaning behind the elephants. According to Muslim texts, it is said that Muhammad was born during the year of the Elephant, earning it's nickname after the legendary fight of a wealthy jealous man attacking the Ka'ba because it was attracting more visitors than his cathredral that he made himself. The man went to Mecca and sent his troops forward on elephant back, but the elephants were rumored to stop before the Ka'ba before the entire army had been killed by a fleet of birds that bore clay stones and killed them all, sparing the elephants. Another form of the difference between the two is probably after the Ottoman Empire, where two works are more figurative. One of them was Bahrum Gur and the Indian Princess in her Black Pavillion (which cannot be found on internet...txbook pg 324) and The Caliph-Harun al-Rashid Visits the Turkish Bath. Both of these people display muslims indulged in the pleasure of flesh, where one of them shows a more sexual kind of message than the relaxing influence of<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;"> the past on the other. However, another kind of art that came to be around this time period were tesselations, which were a series of shapes put together to form a pattern. A modern day artist that uses tesselations is Escher. However, this is the kind of tesselations that Islamic art went through

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%; line-height: 0px; overflow: hidden;"> <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;">ARCHITECTURE: <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;">Iwans, which were long rectangular vaulted halls with monumental arched opening that were placed across from each other and had a court placed inbetween. <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;">Another area of Spain that was taken over was Granada as well. There, another extravagant mosque and palace was built there too, called Alhambra, or Al-Hamra, which means "the red fortress" <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;">As shown, the palace was absolutely gorgeous, having a fountain area, a mosque, many many rooms that were filled with the most beautiful of luxuries.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;">When Alhambra was built, it was supposed to reflect on the Muslim percerption of heaven, or Janath. Which was the reason behind all of the garneds, fountains, and large mosque. The palace itself was huge as well. Pointed and horese-shoe arches would be places all over the interior, making it seem much more grand and more. Large courts would be placed in random areas in the open air, where a fountain with some sort of animal would be holding a founatin on its back. Due to it's large size, poets would even call it the pearl among the emeralds.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 90%;">One last thing that would be good to remember are the tugras. Tugras were basically taking calligraphy, and making it more of a painting than what it was supposed to be reading. Tugras were usually illuminated by gold highlights, and done with black or blue ink. They also usually composed of three to four strokes of the brush, no more. For example, take the tugra of Sultan Suleyman. You can see how the letter is bloated out, and then in fine detial filled with arabesque in the middle of each of the spacings of the letters. Check out some of these awesome websites i found: [|Click Me!!]  And let's not forget this epically awesome video:)  media type="youtube" key="rCxFnnKBUWY" height="390" width="480" align="center" THE END!! HURRAYY!!! ISLAMIC ART HISTORY!! Done by me:)