The origins of visual culture in the Islamic world : aesthetics, art and architecture in early Islam /
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"In tenth-century Iraq, a group of Arab intellectuals and scholars known as the Ikhwan al-Safa began to make their intellectual mark on the society around them. A mysterious organisation, the identities of its members have never been clear. But its contribution to the intellectual thought, philosophy, art and culture of the era - and indeed subsequent ones - is evident. In the visual arts, for example, Hamdouni Alami argues that the theory of human proportions which the Ikwan al-Safa propounded (something very similar to those of da Vinci), helped shape the evolution of the philosophy of aesthetics, art and architecture in the tenth and eleventh centuries CE, in particular in Egypt under the Fatimid rulers. With its roots in Pythagorean and Neoplatonic views on the role of art and architecture, the impact of this theory of specific and precise proportion was widespread. One of the results of this extensive influence is a historic shift in the appreciation of art and architecture and their perceived role in the cultural sphere. The development of the understanding of the interplay between ethics and aesthetics resulted in a movement which emphasised more abstract and pious contemplation of art, as opposed to previous views which concentrated on the enjoyment of artistic works (such as music, song and poetry). And it is with this shift that we see the change in art forms from those devoted to supporting the Umayyad caliphs and the opulence of the Abbasids, to an art which places more emphasis on the internal concepts of 'reason' and 'spirituality'. Using the example of Fatimid art and views of architecture (including the first Fatimid mosque in al-Mahdiyya, Tunisia), Hamdouni Alami offers analysis of the debates surrounding the ethics and aesthetics of the appreciation of Islamic art and architecture from a vital time in medieval Middle Eastern history, and shows their similarity with aesthetic debates of Italian Renaissance." -- Publisher's website.
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xiii, 184 pages : illustrations, plans ; 23 cm. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
1784530409
9781784530402
The art and architecture of Islam, 650-1250 /
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Overview of Islamic art and architecture from the seventh to the thirteenth centuries, a time of the formation of a new artistic culture and its first, medieval, flowering in the vast area from the Atlantic to India. Inspired by Ettinghausen and Grabar's original text, this book has been completely rewritten and updated to take into account recent information and methodological advances. The volume focuses special attention on the development of numerous regional centers of art in Spain, North Africa, Egypt, Syria, Anatolia, Iraq, and Yemen, as well as the western and northeastern provinces of Iran. It traces the cultural and artistic evolution of such centers in the seminal early Islamic period and examines the wealth of different ways of creating a beautiful environment. The book approaches the arts with new classifications of architecture and architectural decoration, the art of the object, and the art of the book. With many new illustrations, often in color, this volume broadens the picture of Islamic artistic production and discusses objects in a wide range of media, including textiles, ceramics, metal, and wood. The book incorporates extensive accounts of the cultural contexts of the arts and defines the originality of each period. A final chapter explores the impact of Islamic art on the creativity of non-Muslims within the Islamic realm and in areas surrounding the Muslim world.
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Continued by : The art and architecture of Islam 1250-1800 / Sheila S. Blair and Jonathan M. Bloom. New Haven, Conn. : Yale University Press, 1994. (Yale University Press Pelican history of art) :
448 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm. :
Includes bibliographical references (pages [415]-428) and index. :
0300053304
Sacred precincts : the religious architecture of non-Muslim communities across the Islamic world /
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This book examines non-Muslim religious sites, structures and spaces in the Islamic world. It reveals a vibrant portrait of life in the religious sites by illustrating how architecture responds to contextual issues and traditions. Sacred Precincts explores urban context; issues of identity; design; construction; transformation and the history of sacred sites and architecture in Europe, the Middle East and Africa from the advent of Islam to the 20th century. It includes case studies on churches and synagogues in Iran, Turkey, Cyprus, Egypt, Iraq, Tunisia, Morocco and Malta, and on sacred sites in Nigeria, Mali, and the Gambia. With contributions by Clara Alvarez, Angela Andersen, Karen Britt, Karla Britton, Jorge Manuel Simão Alves Correia, Elvan Cobb, Daniel Coslett, Mohammad Gharipour, Mattia Guidetti, Suna Güven, Esther Kühn, Amy Landau, Ayla Lepine, Theo Maarten van Lint, David Mallia, Erin Maglaque, Susan Miller, A.A. Muhammad-Oumar, Meltem Özkan Altınöz, Jennifer Pruitt, Rafael Sedighpour, Ann Shafer, Jorge Manuel Simão Alves Correia, Ebru Özeke Tökmeci, Steven Thomson, Heghnar Watenpaugh, Alyson Wharton and Ethel S. Wolper.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004280229 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Muqarnas : an annual on the visual culture of the Islamic world.
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Muqarnas is sponsored by The Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts. In Muqarnas articles are being published on all aspects of Islamic visual culture, historical and contemporary, as well as articles dealing with unpublished textual primary sources.
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"The Aga Khan Program for Islamic architecture, thirtieth anniversary special volume." :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9789047426745 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Mosques of Egypt /
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Less than ten years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, the new religion of Islam arrived in Egypt with the army of Amr ibn al-As in AD 639. Amr immediately established his capital at al-Fustat, just south of modern Cairo, and there he built Africa's first mosque, one still in regular use today. Since then, governors, caliphs, sultans, amirs, beys, pashas, among others, have built mosques, madrasas, and mausoleums throughout Egypt in a changing sequence of Fatimid, Ayyubid, Mamluk, Ottoman, and modern styles. Here, a leading historian of Islamic art and culture celebrates the great variety of Egypt's mosques and related religious buildings, from the early congregational mosques, through the medieval mausoleum--madrasas, to the neighborhood mosques of the Ottoman and modern periods. With outstanding architectural photography and authoritative descriptive texts, this book will be valued as the finest on the subject by scholars and general readers alike. Includes more that 80 of the country's most historic mosques, with more than 500 color photographs. -- Inside jacket flap.
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xxxix, 359 pages : illustrations ; 31 cm. :
Includes bibliographical references ( pages 351-356) and index. :
9789774167324
Architecture for the dead : Cairo's medieval necropolis /
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"In Architecture for the Dead, architect Galila El Kadi and photographer Alain Bonnamy have produced a comprehensive and visually stunning survey of all areas of the necropolis. Through detailed and painstaking research and remarkable photography, in text, maps, plans, and pictures, they describe and illustrate the astonishing variety of architectural styles in the necropolis: from Mamluk to neo-Mamluk via baroque and neo-pharaonic, from the grandest stone buildings with their decorative domes and minarets to the humblest - but elaborately decorated - wooden structures. The book also documents the modern settlement of the necropolis by families creating a space for the living in and among the tombs and architecture for the dead."--BOOK JACKET.
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Translation of : Cité des morts
"An Institut de Recherche pour le Développement Edition."
"First published in French in 2001 under the title Le Cité des Morts" -- Title page verso. :
302 pages : illustrations (some color), maps (some color), plans ; 25 cm. :
Includes bibliographical references (pages 293-294) and indexes. :
9774160746