Islamic art
Islamic art is a part of Islamic culture and encompasses the visual arts produced since the 7th century CE by people who lived within territories inhabited or ruled by Muslim populations. Referring to characteristic traditions across a wide range of lands, periods, and genres, Islamic art is a concept used first by Western art historians in the late 19th century. Public Islamic art is traditionally non-representational, except for the widespread use of plant forms, usually in varieties of the spiralling arabesque. These are often combined with Islamic calligraphy, geometric patterns in styles that are typically found in a wide variety of media, from small objects in ceramic or metalwork to large decorative schemes in tiling on the outside and inside of large buildings, including mosques. Other forms of Islamic art include Islamic miniature painting, artefacts like Islamic glass or pottery, and textile arts, such as carpets and embroidery.
The early developments of Islamic art were influenced by Roman art, Early Christian art, and Sassanian art, with later influences from Central Asian nomadic traditions. Chinese art had a significant influence on Islamic painting, pottery, and textiles. From its beginnings, Islamic art has been based on the written version of the Quran and other seminal religious works, which is reflected by the important role of calligraphy, representing the word as the medium of divine revelation.
Religious Islamic art has been typically characterized by the absence of figures and extensive use of calligraphic, geometric and abstract floral patterns. Nevertheless, representations of human and animal forms historically flourished in nearly all Islamic cultures, although, partly because of opposing religious sentiments, living beings in paintings were often stylized, giving rise to a variety of decorative figural designs.
Both religious and secular art objects often exhibit the same references, styles and forms. These include calligraphy, architecture, textiles and furnishings, such as carpets and woodwork. Secular arts and crafts include the production of textiles, such as clothing, carpets or tents, as well as household objects, made from metal, wood or other materials. Further, figurative miniature paintings have a rich tradition, especially in Persian, Mughal and Ottoman painting. These pictures were often meant to illustrate well-known historical or poetic stories. Some interpretations of Islam, however, include a ban of depiction of animate beings, also known as aniconism. Islamic aniconism stems in part from the prohibition of idolatry and in part from the belief that creation of living forms is God's prerogative.
Terminology
Although the concept of "Islamic art" has been put into question by some modern art historians as a construct of Western cultural views, the similarities between art produced at widely different times and places in the Muslim world, especially in the Islamic Golden Age, have been sufficient to keep the term in wide use as a useful classification since the late 19th century. Scholars such as Jacelyn K. Kerner have drawn attention to its wide-ranging scope referring to more than 40 nations and to the growing public interest both in Western as well as, more recently, in Muslim societies. Further, the List of Islamic museums bears witness to this art historical term having found wide acceptance.The Encyclopædia Britannica defines "Islamic arts" as including visual arts, literature, performing arts and music that "virtually defies any comprehensive definition". In a strict sense, the term might only refer to artistic manifestations that are closely related to religious practice. Most often, however, it is meant to include "all of the arts produced by Muslim peoples, whether connected with their religion or not."
Calligraphy
Calligraphic design is omnipresent in Islamic art, where, as in Europe in the Middle Ages, religious exhortations, including Qur'anic verses, may be included in secular objects, especially coins, tiles and metalwork, and most painted miniatures include some script, as do many buildings. Use of Islamic calligraphy in architecture extended significantly outside of Islamic territories; one notable example is the use of Chinese calligraphy of Arabic verses from the Qur'an in the Great Mosque of Xi'an. Other inscriptions include verses of poetry, and inscriptions recording ownership or donation. Two of the main scripts involved are the symbolic kufic and naskh scripts, which can be found adorning and enhancing the visual appeal of the walls and domes of buildings, the sides of minbars, and metalwork. Islamic calligraphy in the form of painting or sculptures is sometimes referred to as Quranic art.The various forms of traditional Arabic calligraphy and decoration of the manuscripts used for written versions of the Qur'an represent a central tradition of Islamic visual art. The arabesque is often used to symbolize the transcendent, indivisible and infinite nature of God. Mistakes in repetitions may be intentionally introduced as a show of humility by artists who believe only God can produce perfection, although this theory has also been disputed.
East Persian pottery from the 9th to 11th centuries, decorated only with highly stylised inscriptions and called "epigraphic ware", has been described as "probably the most refined and sensitive of all Persian pottery". Large inscriptions made from tiles, sometimes with the letters raised in relief, or the background cut away, are found on the interiors and exteriors of many important buildings. Complex carved calligraphy also decorates buildings. For most of the Islamic period the majority of coins only showed lettering, which are often very elegant despite their small size and nature of production. The tughra or monogram of an Ottoman sultan was used extensively on official documents, with very elaborate decoration for important ones. Other single sheets of calligraphy, designed for albums, might contain short poems, Qur'anic verses, or other texts.
The main languages, all using Arabic script, are Arabic, always used for Qur'anic verses, Persian in the Persianate world, especially for poetry, and Turkish, with Urdu appearing in later centuries. Calligraphers usually had a higher status than other artists.
Since the mid-20th century following the departure of the Dutch colonialists, several Indonesian painters combined Abstract Expressionism with geometric forms, Indonesian symbols and Islamic calligraphy, creating religiously influenced Abstract Art. The spiritual centre of this movement is the Bandung Institute of Technology, with leading teachers such as A.D. Pirous, Ahmad Sadali, Mochtar Apin and Umi Dachlan as their main representatives.
Painting
For a long time, Islam was considered aniconic. Existing pictures among the Muslim royalty have been described as an "aberration" by Thomas Walker Arnold and ascribed to only a later Persinate and Turkic cultural period. However, figurative arts existed since the formative stage of Islam. Such arts have been boasted by Arabic speaking caliphats of Baghdad, Cairo, and Cordova, inspired by Sasanid and Byzantine models. Figurative arts enjoyed prestige among both orthodox Sunni circles as well as Shia Muslims. The disappearance of royal-sponsored figurative arts in Arabic-speaking lands at a later period is best explained by the overthrow of their ruling dynasties and reduction of most their territories to Ottoman provincial dependencies, not by religious prohibition. Another drawback for Arnold's argument against the religious value of figurative arts in Islamic culture is, that a sizable number of rulers ordering figurative arts in the 14th-17th century, were religious zealots proclaiming to spread and enforce the laws of the sharia.Although not many early examples survived, human figurative art was a continuous tradition in Islamic lands, notably several of the Umayyad Desert Castles, and during the Abbasid Caliphate. Prior to the early 14th century, a halo was a common symbol to designate rulers. Under Asian influence, the halo as a symbol of sacredness was replaced by a flame. Reminiscent of the Islamic prophet Solomon, rulers were often depicted as sitting on a throne endowed with religious symbols. An ivory casket carved in early eleventh century Cordova shows a Spanish Muslim ruler holding a cup seated upon a lion throne, similar to that of Solomon. A late 12th–13th century bowl depicts an enthroned Seljuk ruler with messengers to either side and headed winged jinn. Other usage of early figurative arts are illustrations of animal fables. Many of them are of Sanskrit origin and translated into Middle Persian in the sixth century for delight, ethical discussion, and political edification. In the 8th century, they were translated into Arabic.
Although there has been a tradition of wall-paintings, especially in the Persianate world, the best-surviving and highest developed form of painting in the Islamic world is the miniature in illuminated manuscripts, or later as a single page for inclusion in a muraqqa or bound album of miniatures and calligraphy. The tradition of the Persian miniature has been dominant since about the 13th century, strongly influencing the Ottoman miniature of Turkey and the Mughal miniature in India. The term "Persian miniature" refers whereby to the language used to decorate the images, and should not obscure its ties to Arabic imagery.
Siyah Qalam, frequently depicts anecdotes charged with Islamic imagery about the animal souls and the "ruling soul". Most human characters are clothed like dervishes and bearded like ascetics in Islamic tradition. Animals often feature as symbol of the lower and untaimed self. The abstract forces to tame the physical body are depicted in the forms of demons and angels.
Chinese influences included the early adoption of the vertical format natural to a book, which led to the development of a birds-eye view where a very carefully depicted background of hilly landscape or palace buildings rises up to leave only a small area of sky. The figures are arranged in different planes on the background, with recession indicated by placing more distant figures higher up in the space, but at essentially the same size. The colours, which are often very well preserved, are strongly contrasting, bright and clear. The tradition reached a climax in the 16th and early 17th centuries, but continued until the early 19th century, and has been revived in the 20th.
In the 21st century, iconophobic followers of various Islamist groups, such as the Taliban, aim to destroy forms of Islamic figurative depictions. Motivated by Saudi mentors, the Taliban launched an attack on arts in March 2001 in Afghanistan. The religious justification derives from a hadith mentioned by Sahih Bukhari. Others see the rejection of iconography as rooting in a strict aversion to depiction of God throughout Islamic tradition.