The Art and Architecture of Islam, 1250-1800 - Hardcover

Sheila S. Blair; Jonathan M. Bloom

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300058888 ISBN 13: 9780300058888

Publisher: Yale University Press, 1994

Synopsis

Virtually all the masterpieces of Islamic art - the Alhambra, the Taj Mahal, and the Tahmasp Shahnama - were produced during the period from the Mongol conquests in the early thirteenth century to the advent of European colonial rule in the nineteenth. This beautiful book surveys the architecture and arts of the traditional Islamic lands during this era.
Conceived as a sequel to the The Art and Architecture of Islam: 650-1250, by Richard Ettinghausen and Oleg Grabar, the book follows the general format of the first volume, with chronological and regional divisions and architecture treated separately from the other arts. The authors describe over two hundred works of Islamic art of this period and also investigate broader social and economic contexts, considering such topics as function, patronage, and meaning. They discuss, for example, how the universal caliphs of the first six centuries gave way to regional rulers and how, in this new world order, Iranian forms, techniques, and motifs played a dominant role in the artistic life of most of the Muslim world; the one exception was the Maghrib, an area protected from the full brunt of the Mongol invasions, where traditional models continued to inspire artists and patrons. By the sixteenth century, say the authors, the eastern Mediterranean under the Ottomans and the area of northern India under the Mughals had become more powerful, and the Iranian models of early Ottoman and Mughal art gradually gave way to distinct regional and imperial styles. The authors conclude with a provocative essay on the varied legacies of Islamic art in Europe and the Islamic lands in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

About this title

About the Author

Sheila Blair has taught at Pahlavi University in Shiraz, the University of Pennsylvania, and Dartmouth College.

Reviews

Intended as a standard text, this volume by the area editors of Islam for The Dictionary of Art (1980. 3d ed.) is a sequel to Richard Ettinghausen and Oleg Grabar's now classic The Art and Architecture of Islam: 650-1250 (Viking, 1988). Organized simply by chronology (with sections on 1250-1500 and 1500-1800) and then by geography (Iran and Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, Asia Minor, and India), the text focuses separately on architecture and "the arts." Each chapter concentrates on a limited number of significant objects, discussing not only stylistic and aesthetic issues but also addressing the social, historical, and economic contexts of those works. Although this book is densely written in a manner typical of survey texts and lacking the richly colored glossy reproductions of a coffee-table tome, its comprehensive coverage entitles it to become part of any library with the slightest interest in art.
Eugene C. Burt, Art Inst. of Seattle Lib.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300058888
• ISBN 13: 9780300058888
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368