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The Origins of Visual Culture in the Islamic World - Aesthetics, Art and Architecture in Early Islam (Paperback)
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The Origins of Visual Culture in the Islamic World - Aesthetics, Art and Architecture in Early Islam (Paperback)
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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.
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