Kategoria BISAC: Art >> Middle Eastern

The original inspiration for this book came from visits to the buildings of Moorish Spain, in particular those of Grenada, Cordoba and Seville. This striking introduction to Islamic design was followed by journeys to the traditional sites of the Middle East and North Africa and then finally to the newer mosques of Britain.
Everywhere there was a wealth of pattern and inventiveness to marvel at. The sense of wonder increases still further when, on starting to draw the patterns, the simplicity of the grids from which they were developed is discovered.
This book, with its combination of...

The tales of the mi'raj describe the prophet Muhammad's journey through the heavens, his encounters with prophets and angels, and his visit to heaven and hell. The tales are among Islam's most popular, appearing in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish literature, and in later adaptations throughout the Muslim world. Often serving as narratives designed to promote the worldview of particular Muslim groups, the tales were also a means for communities to construct rules of normative behavior and ritual practices, and were used to assert the superiority of Islam over other religions. The essays in...

• Collects essential translations from sources as diverse as the Qur'an, court chronicles, technical treatises on calligraphy and painting, imperial memoirs, and foreign travel accounts
• Includes clear and concise introductory essays
• Situates each text and explains the circumstances in which it was written--the date, place,...

• Collects essential translations from sources as diverse as the Qur'an, court chronicles, technical treatises on calligraphy and painting, imperial memoirs, and foreign travel accounts
• Includes clear and concise introductory essays
• Situates each text and explains the circumstances in which it was written--the date, place,...

Art and cultural production in Egypt during much of the last hundred years has operated against a backdrop of political crisis and confrontation. Patrick Kane focuses on the turbulent changes of the 1920s to 1960s, when polemical discourse and artistic practice developed against the entrenched and co-opted conservatism of elite and state culture. Radical forms of cultural criticism and dissonance emerged, and this legacy continues to resonate through contemporary activism and dissent. Kane charts the rise of key art movements, like the Egyptian Surrealists and the Contemporary Art Group,...

This unique collection takes a fresh look at Orientalism by shifting its center from Europe to Ottoman Istanbul and thinking about art in terms of exchange, reciprocity, and comparative imperialisms. This new lens reveals the essential role of the Ottoman city and its patrons and artists in the dialogues that facilitated production, circulation, and consumption of British Orientalist cultures. In this volume, art works are conceptualized as traveling artifacts produced through localized interactions. World renowned scholars and curators analyze the diverse audiences for such art works and...

Her response to the horrors of our times gives her work purpose and energy. . . . In her depiction of everyday mental and physical brutality, she creates images of aesthetic appeal but disturbing ambiguity.--Lutz Becker

The Iranian artist Parastou Forouhar expresses her reaction to the perplexing situations in her homeland through a wide variety of techniques, from photography to digital drawings and multi-media installations.

This publication presents a selection of her most startling work so far, created in response to the dramatic social and political upheaval that she...

-Shockingly beautiful and evocative . . . the artists echo the feelings of Palestinians who have to make do with life in a divided, disfigured land.---Raja Shehadeh

In art and literature, walls are frequently used as powerful symbols of division. For the people of Palestine, however, the wall that cuts deeply into their land and society is all too real, snaking through over seven hundred kilometres of the West Bank. It throttles Palestinians, seals off Israelis, and all but guarantees perpetual ignorance, fear, and rage on both sides.

Keep Your Eye on the Wall brings...

Contemporary artists in Pakistan have, in recent decades, revived and reinvented miniature painting: a traditional artform which had faded under the colonial influence of the British, and is now gaining ground as a medium for a new generation of artists to challenge the world around them. At once traditional and post-modern, the miniature paintings reveal a satirical treatment of serious issues: from religious and political fundamentalism to ""McDonalization,"" from violence against women to nuclear warfare, from the pressures of Purdah to the machismo of Lollywood film posters. This is...