What is 'Islamic' Art?
Between Religion and Perception

An alternate approach to Islamic art emphasizing literary over historical contexts and reception over production in visual arts and music.

Wendy M. K. Shaw (Author)

9781108465212, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 30 June 2022

402 pages
24.4 x 17 x 2.1 cm, 0.642 kg

'... a must-read for art historians, curators and students interested in the sophistication of Islamic art, historically best appreciated by educated Muslims.' Tamimi Arab Pooyan, Journal of the Association of Art History

Revealing what is 'Islamic' in Islamic art, Shaw explores the perception of arts, including painting, music, and geometry through the discursive sphere of historical Islam including the Qur'an, Hadith, Sufism, ancient philosophy, and poetry. Emphasis on the experience of reception over the context of production enables a new approach, not only to Islam and its arts, but also as a decolonizing model for global approaches to art history. Shaw combines a concise introduction to Islamic intellectual history with a critique of the modern, secular, and European premises of disciplinary art history. Her meticulous interpretations of intertextual themes span antique philosophies, core religious and theological texts, and prominent prose and poetry in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Urdu that circulated across regions of Islamic hegemony from the eleventh century to the colonial and post-colonial contexts of the modern Middle East.

List of figures
Preface
Note on transcultural communication
Introduction: from Islamic art to perceptual culture
1. The Islamic image
2. Seeing with the ear
3. The insufficient image
4. Seeing with the heart
5. Seeing through the mirror
6. Deceiving deception
7. The transcendent image
8. The transgressive image
9. Mimetic geometries
10. Perspectives on perspective
Conclusion: out of perspective
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Islamic studies [JFSR2], Middle Eastern history [HBJF1]