Download or read book Reframing the Alhambra written by Olga Bush and published by EUP. This book was released on 2020-10-31 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Nasrid builders of the Alhambra âe" the best-preserved medieval Muslim palatial city âe" were so exacting that some of their work could not be fully explained until the invention of fractal geometry. Their design principles have been obscured, however, by the loss of all archival material. This book resolves that impasse by investigating the neglected, interdisciplinary contexts of medieval poetics and optics and through comparative study of Islamic court ceremonials. This reframing enables the reconstruction of the underlying, integrated aesthetic, focusing on the harmonious interrelationship between diverse artistic media âe"architecture, poetry and textiles âe" in the experience of the beholder, resulting in a new understanding of the Alhambra.

Download or read book Deconstructing the Myths of Islamic Art written by Onur Öztürk and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-03-20 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deconstructing the Myths of Islamic Art addresses how researchers can challenge stereotypical notions of Islam and Islamic art while avoiding the creation of new myths and the encouragement of nationalistic and ethnic attitudes. Despite its Orientalist origins, the field of Islamic art has continued to evolve and shape our understanding of the various civilizations of Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Situated in this field, this book addresses how universities, museums, and other educational institutions can continue to challenge stereotypical or homogeneous notions of Islam and Islamic art. It reviews subtle and overt mythologies through scholarly research, museum collections and exhibitions, classroom perspectives, and artists’ initiatives. This collaborative volume addresses a conspicuous and persistent gap in the literature, which can only be filled by recognizing and resolving persistent myths regarding Islamic art from diverse academic and professional perspectives. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, museum studies, visual culture, and Middle Eastern studies.

Download or read book Sensory Reflections written by Fiona Griffiths and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2018-10-22 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume draws on emerging scholarship at the intersection of two already vibrant fields: medieval material culture and medieval sensory experience. The rich potential of medieval matter (most obviously manuscripts and visual imagery, but also liturgical objects, coins, textiles, architecture, graves, etc.) to complement and even transcend purely textual sources is by now well established in medieval scholarship across the disciplines. So, too, attention to medieval sensory experiences—most prominently emotion—has transformed our understanding of medieval religious life and spirituality, violence, power, and authority, friendship, and constructions of both the self and the other. Our purpose in this volume is to draw the two approaches together, plumbing medieval material sources for traces of sensory experience - above all ephemeral and physical experiences that, unlike emotion, are rarely fully described or articulated in texts.

Download or read book World Architecture and Society 2 volumes written by Peter Louis Bonfitto and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2021-12-06 with total page 767 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This two-volume encyclopedia covers buildings and sites of global significance from prehistoric times to the present day, providing students with an essential understanding of architectural development and its impact on human societies. This two-volume encyclopedia provides an in-depth look at buildings and sites of global significance throughout history. The volumes are separated into four regional sections: 1) the Americas, 2) Europe, 3) Africa and the Middle East, and 4) Asia and the Pacific. Four regional essays investigate the broader stylistic and historical contexts that describe the development of architecture through time and across the globe. Entries explore the unique importance of buildings and sites, including the megalithic wonder of Stonehenge and the imposing complex of Angkor Wat. Entries on Spanish colonial missions in the Americas and the medieval Islamic universities of the Sahara connect to broader building traditions. Other entries highlight remarkable stories of architectural achievement and memory, like those of Tuskegee University, a site hand-built by former slaves, or the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, which was built at the site of the atomic detonation. Each entry focuses on the architectural but includes strong consideration of the social impact, importance, and significance each structure has had in the past and in the present.

Download or read book Islamic Art and Architecture 650 1250 written by Richard Ettinghausen and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2003-07-11 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This richly illustrated book provides an unsurpassed 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.

Download or read book Textile in Architecture written by Didem Ekici and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-06-30 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates the interconnections between textile and architecture via a variety of case studies from the Middle Ages through the twentieth century and from diverse geographic contexts. Among the oldest human technologies, building and weaving have intertwined histories. Textile structures go back to Palaeolithic times and are still in use today and textile furnishings have long been used in interiors. Beyond its use as a material, textile has offered a captivating model and metaphor for architecture through its ability to enclose, tie together, weave, communicate, and adorn. Recently, architects have shown a renewed interest in the textile medium due to the use of computer-aided design, digital fabrication, and innovative materials and engineering. The essays edited and compiled here, work across disciplines to provide new insights into the enduring relationship between textiles and architecture. The contributors critically explore the spatial and material qualities of textiles as well as cultural and political significance of textile artifacts, patterns, and metaphors in architecture. Textile in Architecture is organized into three sections: “Ritual Spaces,” which examines the role of textiles in the formation and performance of socio-political, religious, and civic rituals; “Public and Private Interiors” explores how textiles transformed interiors corresponding to changing aesthetics, cultural values, and material practices; and “Materiality and Material Translations,” which considers textile as metaphor and model in the materiality of built environment. Including cases from Morocco, Samoa, France, India, the UK, Spain, the Ancient Andes and the Ottoman Empire, this is essential reading for any student or researcher interested in textiles in architecture through the ages.

Download or read book Architecture of the Islamic West written by Jonathan M. Bloom and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-30 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An authoritative survey situating some of the Western world’s most renowned buildings within a millennium of Islamic history Some of the most outstanding examples of world architecture, such as the Mosque of Córdoba, the ceiling of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo, the Giralda tower in Seville, and the Alhambra Palace in Granada, belong to the Western Islamic tradition. This architectural style flourished for over a thousand years along the southern and western shores of the Mediterranean—between Tunisia and Spain—from the 8th century through the 19th, blending new ideas with local building practices from across the region. Jonathan M. Bloom’s Architecture of the Islamic West introduces readers to the full scope of this vibrant tradition, presenting both famous and little-known buildings in six countries in North Africa and southern Europe. It is richly illustrated with photographs, specially commissioned architectural plans, and historical documents. The result is a personally guided tour of Islamic architecture led by one of the finest scholars in the field and a powerful testament to Muslim cultural achievement.

Download or read book Reframing Prostitution written by N. Persak and published by Maklu. This book was released on 2014-07-07 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prostitution has always fascinated the public and bewildered policy makers. Reframing Prostitution explores several aspects of this multidimensional phenomenon, examining different ways in which prostitution is and was being practised in different places and different times, best practices in the regulation of prostitution as well as wider social and psychological issues, such as the construction of prostitution as incivility or of prostitutes as a socially problematic group or as victimised individuals. The book also addresses normative questions with respect to policy making, unmasking the purposes behind certain societal reactions towards prostitution as well as proposing innovative solutions that could reconcile societal fears of exploitation and abuse while meeting the rights and needs of individuals voluntarily involved in prostitution. With contributions across social science disciplines, this international collection presents a valuable discussion on the importance of empirical studies in various segments of prostitution, highlights social contexts around it and challenges regulatory responses that frame our thinking about prostitution, promoting fresh debate about future policy directions in this area.

Download or read book Lost Paradise written by Elizabeth Drayson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-07-08 with total page 559 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essential history of an iconic European city, by Cambridge academic Elizabeth Drayson. 'An admirable achievement... [Drayson has] expertise as a scholar and command as a storyteller' BBC History Magazine 'A glittering homage to one of the world's most beautiful and storied cities' Dan Jones 'Beauty built on blood and brutality... A fascinating new tome' Daily Mail From the early Middle Ages to the present, foreign travellers have been bewitched by Granada's peerless beauty. The Andalusian city is also the stuff of story and legend, with an unforgettable history to match. Romans, then Visigoths, settled here, as did a community of Jews; in the eleventh century a Berber chief made Granada his capital, and from 1230 until 1492 the Nasrids – Spain's last Islamic dynasty – ruled the emirate of Granada from their fortress-palace of the Alhambra. After capturing the city to complete the Christian Reconquista, the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella made the Alhambra the site of their royal court. In Lost Paradise, Elizabeth Drayson takes the reader on a voyage of discovery that uncovers the many-layered past of Spain's most complex and fascinating city, celebrating and exploring its evolving identity. Her account brings to the fore the image of Granada as a lost paradise, revealing it as a place of perpetual contradiction and linking it to the great dilemma over Spain's true identity as a nation. This is the story of a vanished Eden, of a place that questions and probes Spain's deep obsession with forgetting, and with erasing historical and cultural memory.

Download or read book Muthanna Mirror Writing in Islamic Calligraphy written by Esra Akin-Kivanç and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Muthanna, also known as mirror writing, is a compelling style of Islamic calligraphy composed of a source text and its mirror image placed symmetrically on a horizontal or vertical axis. This style elaborates on various scripts such as Kufic, naskh, and muhaqqaq through compositional arrangements, including doubling, superimposing, and stacking. Muthanna is found in diverse media, ranging from architecture, textiles, and tiles to paper, metalwork, and woodwork. Yet despite its centuries-old history and popularity in countries from Iran to Spain, scholarship on the form has remained limited and flawed. Muthanna / Mirror Writing in Islamic Calligraphy provides a comprehensive study of the text and its forms, beginning with an explanation of the visual principles and techniques used in its creation. Author Esra Akin-Kivanc explores muthanna's relationship to similar forms of writing in Judaic and Christian contexts, as well as the specifically Islamic contexts within which symmetrically mirrored compositions reached full fruition, were assigned new meanings, and transformed into more complex visual forms. Throughout, Akin-Kivanc imaginatively plays on the implicit relationship between subject and object in muthanna by examining the point of view of the artist, the viewer, and the work of art. In doing so, this study elaborates on the vital links between outward form and inner meaning in Islamic calligraphy.

Download or read book The Bloomsbury Handbook of Muslims and Popular Culture written by Hussein Rashid and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-09-21 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Bloomsbury Handbook of Muslims and Popular Culture illustrates how Muslims participate in a broad spectrum of activities. Moving beyond a framework that emphasizes ritual, legal, historical, or theological issues, this book speaks to how Muslims live in the world, in relation to their religion and the realities of the world around them. The international team of contributors provide in-depth analysis that chronicles Islamic cultural products in regional and transnational contexts, explores dominant and emerging theories about popularization, and offers provocations in the field of religion and popular culture. The handbook is structured in six parts: spaces; appetites; performances; readings; visions; and communities. The book explores a variety of Muslim societies and communities within the last 100 years, ranging from the Islamic presence in Latin American architecture to Muslim Anglophone hip-hop, and Muslims in modern Indian theatre.

Download or read book Mamluk Cairo a Crossroads for Embassies written by Frédéric Bauden and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-01-07 with total page 909 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mamluk Cairo, a Crossroads for Embassies gathers twenty-eight essays that offer the most up-to-date insight into the diplomacy and diplomatics of the Mamluk sultanate with Muslim and non-Muslim powers.

Download or read book Seljuqs and their Successors written by Canby Sheila Canby and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2020-05-28 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rising from nomadic origins as Turkish tribesmen, the powerful and culturally prolific Seljuqs and their successor states dominated vast lands extending from Central Asia to the eastern Mediterranean from the eleventh to the fourteenth century. Supported by colour images, charts, and maps, this volume examines how under Seljuq rule, migrations of people and the exchange and synthesis of diverse traditions-including Turkmen, Perso-Arabo-Islamic, Byzantine, Armenian, Crusader and other Christian cultures-accompanied architectural patronage, advances in science and technology and a great flowering of culture within the realm. It also explores how shifting religious beliefs, ideologies of authority, and lifestyle in Seljuq times influenced cultural and artistic production, urban and rural architecture, monumental inscriptions and royal titulature, and practices of religion and magic. It also presents today's challenges and new approaches to preserving the material heritage of this vastly accomplished and influential civilization.

Download or read book Medieval Monuments of Central Asia written by McClary Richard Piran McClary and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2020-05-28 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a comprehensive study of the surviving monuments of the Qarakhanids - an important yet little-known medieval dynasty that ruled much of Central Asia between the late 10th and early 13th centuries. Based on extensive fieldwork and many hard-to-find Russian sources, the book places the surviving monuments into the wider cultural context of the region. Many photographs and new ground-plans are included, as well as detailed studies of individual monuments and the wider architectural aesthetic. These monuments serve as the link between the mostly lost Samanid architecture and the far larger and better-known monuments of the Timurids.

Download or read book Mosque written by Idries Trevathan and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-03-29 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mosque examines the history, culture, evolution and functions of the Muslim house of worship through the prism of its artistic objects and architectural elements. Contributors present a range of elements, from dome to mihrab, to mosque furniture including lamps, prayer rugs and Qur’an stands. In addition, the book draws attention to the importance of mosque heritage through special projects and initiatives that study, preserve and revitalize the traditional arts of the mosque. This unique book brings together prominent architects, art historians, artists, historians and curators to explore innovative approaches towards the study of mosques through the presentation of original research and insights about mosque-related cultural objects. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the art and culture of the Muslim world.

Download or read book What is Islamic Art written by Wendy M. K. Shaw and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-10 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An alternate approach to Islamic art emphasizing literary over historical contexts and reception over production in visual arts and music.

Download or read book Making of the Artist in Late Timurid Painting written by Balafrej Lamia Balafrej and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-01 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the absence of a tradition of self-portraiture, how could artists signal their presence within a painting? Centred on late Timurid manuscript painting (ca. 1470-1500), this book reveals that pictures could function as the painter's delegate, charged with the task of centring and defining artistic work, even as they did not represent the artist's likeness. Influenced by the culture of the majlis, an institutional gathering devoted to intricate literary performances and debates, late Timurid painters used a number of strategies to shift manuscript painting from an illustrative device to a self-reflective object, designed to highlight the artist's imagination and manual dexterity. These strategies include visual abundance, linear precision, the incorporation of inscriptions addressing aspects of the painting and the artist's signature. Focusing on one of the most iconic manuscripts of the Persianate tradition, the Cairo Bustan made in late Timurid Herat and bearing the signatures of the painter Bihzad, this book explores Persian manuscript painting as a medium for artistic performance and self-representation, a process by which artistic authority was shaped and discussed.