Embracing over a thousand years of history and an area stretching from the Atlantic to the borders of India and China, this is an unrivalled synthesis of the arts of Islamic civilization. From the death of the Prophet Muhammad to the present day, Robert Hillenbrand traces the evolution of an extraordinary range of art forms, including architecture, calligraphy, book illumination, painting, ceramics, glassware, textiles and metalwork. New to this edition is a chapter ranging from c. 1700 to c. 1900, a period very often neglected in books on this subject. Hillenbrand explores how recent centuries, far from being a dark age, have seen incredible artistic ferment and creativity across the Islamic world. Full-colour illustrations of masterpieces of Islamic art and architecture - from Moorish Spain to contemporary Iran - show the far-reaching stylistic developments as well as the recurrent preoccupations that have shaped the arts of Islam since the seventh century. With 227 illustrations in colour

A richly informative and visually packed sourcebook demonstrating and explaining the function and worldwide appeal of Islamic architecture. Islamic architecture dates back 1,400 years and continues to reinvent itself up to the present day. The enormous richness of building types, regional styles, and architectural details is revealed here by a well-travelled expert guide, exploring the familiar and unfamiliar, striking a balance between famous masterpieces and unknown gems. All eras and global regions are represented, with a selective eye for some of the creative exuberance, boldness and sensitivity of Islamic architecture that has not always been widely appreciated outside of the region. Close-ups of architectural details not only describe style and function but also show the hand of the craftsman, making this reference work both useful and beautiful. Here is a wealth of information about the historical and cultural context of buildings around the world, a chance to encounter the widest Islamic community, and the deeper pleasure of immersing ourselves in the beauty of Islamic architecture.

In their own words, Jonathan Bloom and Sheila Blair espouse 'things and thinginess rather than theories and isations'. This book's practical, down-to-earth dimension, expressed in plain, simple English, runs counter to the current fashion for theoretical explanations and their accompanying jargon when exploring the world of Islamic art. Its many insights, firmly anchored in artistic practice in architecture, painting and the decorative arts, are supported by ample technical know-how. The range is wide - mosques becoming temples; how religious buildings reflect politics; Yemeni frescoes and inscriptions; domestic Syrian 18th-century ornament; Egyptian bookbinding techniques; recycling and repair in Damascene crafts; conservation versus restoration; narrative on ceramics; metalwork with architectural motifs; lost buildings reconstructed; how objects speak;Muslim burials in China; the role of migrating potters; Mughal painting; stone carpet weights; the use of metals in Islamic manuscripts, calligraphy and modern artists' books.

Shahnama: The Visual Language of the Persian Book of Kings presents the first comprehensive examination of the interplay between text and image in the celebrated Persian national epic, the Shahnama, written by the poet Firdausi of Tus. The Shahnama is one of the longest poems ever composed and recounts the history of Iran from the dawn of time to the Muslim Arab conquests of the seventh century AD. There is no Persian text, in prose or poetry, which has been so frequently and lavishly illustrated. Offering fresh insights through a range of varied art-historical approaches to the Shahnama, the essays in this volume reveal how the subtle alterations in text and image serve to document changes in taste and style and can be understood as reflections of the changing role of the national epic in the imagination of Iranians and the equally changing messages - often political in nature - which the familiar stories were made to convey over the centuries.

A detailed study of the Great Mongol Shahnama, considered to be the greatest of all Persian illustrated manuscripts The Great Mongol Shahnama is widely considered to be the definitive version of Firdausi's epic poem, and the greatest of all Persian illustrated manuscripts. The paintings from this manuscript are held in private collections and institutions around the world, and have only been seen together in a single volume once since they were originally dispersed. This monograph reunites the paintings and reproduces them as 67 full-page, high quality color plates, alongside an analysis by leading scholar of Islamic art, Robert Hillenbrand. With newly commissioned photographs and insights into technical aspects of the paintings, The Great Mongol Shahnama is a comprehensive resource for those interested in Persian art and manuscripts. Distributed for Hali Publications Ltd. and the Freer|Sackler, Smithsonian. Co-published by Hali Publications Ltd. and the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art, and supported by Qatar Museums. Exhibition Schedule: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, DC (December 2020-June 2021)

The Image of the Black in African and Asian Art asks how the black figure was depicted by artists from the non-Western world. Beginning with ancient Egypt-positioned properly as part of African history-this volume focuses on the figure of the black as rendered by artists from Africa, East Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. The aesthetic traditions illustrated here are as diverse as the political and social histories of these regions. From Igbo Mbari sculptures to modern photography from Mali, from Indian miniatures to Japanese prints, African and Asian artists portrayed the black body in ways distinct from the European tradition, even as they engaged with Western art through the colonial encounter and the forces of globalization. This volume complements the vision of art patrons Dominique and Jean de Menil who, during the 1960s, founded an image archive to collect the ways that people of African descent have been represented in Western art from the ancient world to modern times. A half-century later, Harvard University Press and the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research completed the historic publication of The Image of the Black in Western Art-ten books in total-beginning with Egyptian antiquities and concluding with images that span the twentieth century. The Image of the Black in African and Asian Art reinvigorates the de Menil family's original mission and reorients the study of the black body with a new focus on Africa and Asia.

Winner of the American Publishers Association's Award for an outstanding Professional and Scholarly title and the Alice Davis Hitchcock Medallion 1996 from the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain. In a dazzling display of erudition, Robert Hillenbrand surveys the major building-types of the Islamic World: religious architecture (the mosque, the minaret, the madrasa), the mausoleum 'between Heaven and Earth', and the caravansarai and the palace representing the secular side. All the building-types are discussed in art-historical terms, with the interplay of form and function taken as the underlying theme of the analysis. All are comprehensively illustrated with a full range of colour and black-and-white photographs, analytical drawings, thumbnail comparative assemblies and ground plans. This major reference work, covering from Spain to Afghanistan and c. 700 to c. 1700, is a source of fascination for all seeking to appreciate the rich heritage of the Islamic World. Recurrent themes and patterns take on a wider significance - a persistent reminder that the Islamic faith and the particular type of society which it engendered makes light of vast gulfs of time and space. Features: *24 colour plates *300 black-and-white photographs *1246 line drawings *Section of composite drawings and ground plans Available in Hardback (originally published in 1994) and a revised paperback edition published in 2000. This new paperback edition includes a previously unpublished index, designed to make the book more user-friendly.

I.B.Tauris in association with the Iran Heritage Foundation Iran's rich cultural heritage has been shaped over many centuries by its rich and eventful history. This impressive book, which assembles contributions by some of the world's most eminent historians, art historians and other scholars of the Iranian world, explores the history of the country through the prism of Persian literature, art and culture. The result is a seminal work which illuminates important, yet largely neglected, aspects of Medieval and Early Modern Iran and the Middle East. Its scope, from the era of Ferdowsi, Iran's national epic poet and the author of the Shahnameh to the period of the Mongols, Timurids, Safavids, Zands and Qajars, examines the interaction between mythology, history, historiography, poetry, painting and craftwork in the long narrative of the Persianate experience. As such, Ferdowsi, the Mongols and the History of Iran is essential reading and a reference point for students and scholars of Iranian history, Persian literature and the arts of the Islamic World.