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Islamic art is justly famed for its technological sophistication, varied approaches to ornament, and innovative employment of the written word. But what do we know about the skilled artisans who spent their lives designing and creating the paintings, objects and buildings that are so admired today? This anthology of written sources (dating from the seventh to the twentieth centuries) explores numerous aspects of the crafts of the Middle East from the processing of raw materials to the manufacture of finished artefacts. You will learn about: the legal and ethical dimensions of the arts and crafts, the organisation of labour in urban and rural contexts, the everyday lives of artisans, the gendered dimensions of making things, and the impact of industrialisation upon traditional methods of manufacture. Each chapter begins with an introduction providing a wider context for the primary sources. There are also suggestions for further reading.
In c.1142 work started on the construction of a major castle in the southern Jordanian town of Karak. The largest of a network of fortifications, Karak castle became the administrative centre of an important Crusader lordship. After 1188 Karak and its territories were incorporated into the Ayyubid, Mamluk and Ottoman sultanates. This book traces the history of Karak and the surrounding lands during the Middle Islamic period (c.1100-1650 CE). The book offers an innovative methodology, combining primary textual sources (in Latin and Arabic) with archaeological data (principally the ceramic record) as a means to reconstruct the fluctuating economic relations between Karak and other regions of the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean.
The balsam of Matarea was a famous panacea among physicians in the Middle East and Europe during the antique and medieval periods. Using written sources, visual data and archaeological material, Milwright reconstructs the fascinating cultural history of the balsam tree: from Jericho and En-Gedi to Egypt, and from ancient times to the 17th century.
The Dome of the Rock is a shrine located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. When was it built? What meanings was it meant to convey to viewers at the time of its construction? These are questions that have preoccupied historians of Islamic art and architecture, and numerous interpretations of the Dome of the Rock have been proposed. Marcus Milwright returns to one of the most important pieces of evidence: the mosaic inscriptions running around the two faces of the octagonal arcade. His detailed examination of the physical characteristics, morphology and content of these inscriptions provides new evidence about the chronology the building and the iconography of the Dome of the Rock.
The Islamic world's artistic traditions experienced profound transformation in the 19th century as rapidly developing technologies and globalizing markets ushered in drastic changes in technique, style, and content. Despite the importance and ingenuity of these developments, the 19th century remains a gap in the history of Islamic art. To fill this opening in art historical scholarship, Making Modernity in the Islamic Mediterranean charts transformations in image-making, architecture, and craft production in the Islamic world from Fez to Istanbul. Contributors focus on the shifting methods of production, reproduction, circulation, and exchange artists faced as they worked in fields such as photography, weaving, design, metalwork, ceramics, and even transportation. Covering a range of media and a wide geographical spread, Making Modernity in the Islamic Mediterranean reveals how 19th-century artists in the Middle East and North Africa reckoned with new tools, materials, and tastes from local perspectives.
Providing an introduction to the artistic and architectural traditions of the Islamic world, A Story of Islamic Art explores fifty case studies, taken from different regions of the Islamic world and from the seventh to the twenty-first centuries. The novel aspect of these case studies is that they are presented as fictional narratives, allowing the reader to imagine art and architecture, either in their original cultural settings or at some later point in their histories. These stories are supported by a scholarly framework that allows the reader to continue their exploration of the chosen artifacts and their historical context. The fifty case studies take the form of short stories, each of ...
The two-volume Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture bridges the gap between monograph and survey text by providing a new level of access and interpretation to Islamic art. The more than 50 newly commissioned essays revisit canonical topics, and include original approaches and scholarship on neglected aspects of the field. This two-volume Companion showcases more than 50 specially commissioned essays and an introduction that survey Islamic art and architecture in all its traditional grandeur Essays are organized according to a new chronological-geographical paradigm that remaps the unprecedented expansion of the field and reflects the nuances of major artistic and political developments ...
Canada has seen the study of Islamic art and archeology grow steadily over the last five decades, with growth in research and teaching across numerous Canadian universities as well as important collections of Islamic art and archaeological materials, most notably at the Royal Ontario Museum and the Aga Khan Museum. Made for the Eye of One Who Sees uncovers the contributions of scholars and museum curators at Canadian institutions to current scholarship on Islamic art. Employing a wide range of approaches and theoretical perspectives, contributors cover topics from across the Islamic world dating from the eighth century to the present. Subjects include the iconography of architectural design ...
This introduction to the archaeology of the Islamic world traces the history of the discipline from its earliest manifestations through to the present and evaluates the contribution made by archaeology to the understanding of key aspects of Islamic culture. The author argues that it is essential for the results of archaeological research to be more fully integrated into the wider historical study of the Islamic world. His organisation of the book into broad themes allows a focus on issues that are relevant across different regions and periods, and the broad geographical scope reflects the main focus of archaeological work in the Islamic world to the present day.