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List of illustrations

  • Map of the Muslim world in the tenth century
  • Bath, general view
  • The Six Kings
  • Sassanian King, restored
  • Jerusalem, aerial view
  • Dome of the Rock, exterior
  • Dome of the Rock, plan
  • Dome of the Rock, interior
  • Mosaic, detail, from the Dome of the Rock
  • Mosaic, detail, from the Dome of the Rock
  • Reconstruction of the original city of Mansur
  • Automata, miniature
  • The Haram, general view
  • Umayyad mosque
  • Umayyad mosque
  • Islamic coin, "mihrab" type, reverse
  • Islamic coin, Arab-Sassanian type, obverse and reverse
  • Islamic coin, Arab-Byzantine type
  • Islamic coin, Standing Caliph type, obverse and reverse
  • Islamic coin, "Orant" type, obverse and reverse
  • Islamic coin, new type, obverse and reverse
  • Seal of Abd al-Malik
  • Prophet's house, reconstructed plan
  • Umayyad mosque, plan
  • Umayyad mosque, interior
  • Umayyad mosque, courtyard
  • Great Mosque of Córdoba, plan
  • Mosque of Córdoba, scheme of its development
  • Great Mosque of Córdoba, aerial view
  • Mosque, St. Stephen's gate
  • Great Mosque of Córdoba, dome in front of mihrab
  • Great Mosque of Córdoba, Prayer hall of Abd al-Rahman
  • Great Mosque of Córdoba, maqsurah in front of mihrab
  • Great Mosque, plan
  • Umayyad mosque, reconstruction
  • Reconstruction of mosque
  • So-called Abu Dulaf mosque, plan
  • Reconstruction of Aqsa mosque
  • Ibn Tulun mosque, plan
  • Mosque, plan
  • Mosque, plan
  • Mosque, general view
  • Ibn Tulun mosque
  • Minaret of Great Mosque
  • Great Mosque, minaret
  • Great Mosque, mihrab area
  • Mosque of Córdoba, mihrab
  • Isometric drawing of the Mosque of al-Hakim, Cairo
  • Mosque, general view
  • Mosque, plan
  • Mosque, plan
  • Ribat, ground plan
  • Mosque, view of ruins
  • Aqsa mosque, wooden panel
  • Great Mosque, dome in front of mihrab
  • Great Mosque of Córdoba, marble sculpture near mihrab
  • Mosque of the Three Gates
  • Qur'an page
  • Palace, plan
  • Qusayr Amra, plan
  • Khirbat al-Mafjar, plan
  • Palace, plan
  • Mshatta, plan
  • Palace, plan
  • City palace, plan
  • Palace façade
  • Reconstruction of façade
  • Palace, general view
  • Reconstruction of palace façade
  • Single gate in outer enclosure
  • Palace, view of throne room
  • Khirbat al-Mafjar, bath, mosaic pavement
  • Reconstruction of bath
  • Bath, general view
  • Bath, plan
  • Reconstruction of room to the north of the bath hall
  • Reconstruction of pool in forecourt
  • Tracery window from palace
  • Mosaic floor
  • Sculpture from the façade imitating Palmyrene art
  • Sculpture from the courtyard imitating a Byzantine model
  • Sculpture of prince imitating a Sassanian model
  • Sculpture from bath entrance
  • Sculpture from bath entrance
  • Sculpture from courtyard of palace, possibly gift bearers
  • Khirbat al-Mafjar, frieze of heads in interlace
  • Sculpture from palace entrance
  • Sculpture from palace entrance
  • Painting of female attendants on side of prince
  • Floor painting imitating a classical model
  • Painting of a tall woman standing near a swimming pool
  • Jausaq al-Khaqani palace
  • Jausaq al-Khaqani palace, painting
  • Ewer
  • Fragmentary textile, detail
  • Ivory pyxis, detail
  • Ivory pyxis, detail
  • Pyxis
  • Ivory pyxis, detail
  • Plate with the Enthroned King Surrounded by Musicians and Servants
  • Vessel
  • Buyid silk
  • Fragment of a tiraz
  • Qasr al-Hayr East, plan of city
  • Caravanserai, façade
  • Stucco fragment from small city palace
  • Painted Dado Panels
  • Element from a Stalactite Squinch (Muqarnas)
  • Ceramic plate, luster-painted imitating metalwork
  • Bowl with Green, Yellow, and Brown Splashed Decoration
  • Jar with Four Lug Handles
  • Ceramic plate, polychrome luster-painted
  • Plate with Four Human Figures around a Horse and Cheetah
  • Bowl
  • Plate
  • Ceramic plate with inscription
  • Luster-painted goblet
  • Ewer
  • Aquamanile
  • Decorative panel on façade of palace
  • Decorative panel from entrance to bath
  • Mshatta facade with carved stone triangles
  • Stone sculpture from façade
  • Mshatta facade with carved stone triangles
  • Mshatta facade with carved stone triangles
  • Stucco panel
  • Stucco panel
  • Woodwork from Egypt
  • Panel with Horse Heads
  • Samanid mausoleum, general view
  • Samanid mausoleum, interior
  • Façade of so-called Arab Ata mausoleum
  • Fatimid mausoleums
Free
Description: The Formation of Islamic Art
Contents
PublisherYale University Press
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00135.001
Free
Description: The Formation of Islamic Art
List of Illustrations
PublisherYale University Press
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00135.002
Description: The Formation of Islamic Art
Several impulses led to the writing of this book and, since these impulses dictated its scope and its format, there is a point in defining them briefly. A first one is that in the field of Near Eastern art there are almost no intermediates between the very specialized scholarly study and the very general book. The former rarely elicits much enthusiasm except in rarefied circles, while the latter is often general to the point of meaninglessness or erroneous in too many details because of the …
PublisherYale University Press
Related print edition pages: pp.xv-xix
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00135.003

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Description: The Formation of Islamic Art
In a book that is still one of the best short introductions to Islamic art, the late George Marçais proposed that a person with a modicum of artistic culture leaf through photographs of major works of art from the world over. He contended that almost automatically a group of works would be identifiable as Islamic, Muslim, Moorish, Muhammadan, or Saracenic, because they shared a number of commonly known features—what Marçais called the personality of Islamic art—which differentiated them from …
PublisherYale University Press
Related print edition pages: pp.1-18
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00135.004

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Description: The Formation of Islamic Art
Two subjects discussed above may serve as the starting point for what will be attempted in this chapter. One is the conclusion that in order to define the ways in which Islamic art was formed it is first necessary to identify the subjects, forms, and attitudes that developed over a vast area after 634, the year in which the conquest began to extend beyond Arabia itself. The other is the more complex question of absolute and relative times in the creation of a new artistic tradition, or when we …
PublisherYale University Press
Related print edition pages: pp.19-42
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00135.005

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Description: The Formation of Islamic Art
Some time in the 630s, when Muslim forces were rapidly taking over the cities and territories of the Fertile Crescent, a curious event is said to have taken place in the small town of Qinnasrin in northern Syria. An Arab force under the celebrated general Abu Ubaydah had signed a truce of one year with the Christians of the city in order to allow those Christians who so desired to leave Syria for the Byzantine-held territories of Anatolia. A line of demarcation was established between the …
PublisherYale University Press
Related print edition pages: pp.43-71
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00135.006

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Description: The Formation of Islamic Art
Much has been written about Islamic attitudes toward the arts. Encyclopedias or general works on the history of art simply assert that, for a variety of reasons which are rarely explored, Islam was theologically opposed to the representation of living beings. While it is fairly well known by now that the Koran contains no prohibition of such representations, the undeniable denunciations of artists and of representations found in many traditions about the life of the Prophet are taken as genuine …
PublisherYale University Press
Related print edition pages: pp.72-98
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00135.007

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Description: The Formation of Islamic Art
It is customary to separate secular and religious impulses in the formation and development of an art. It is also often said that the separation is not entirely meaningful in Islam, which did not make a distinction between the realms of God and of Caesar. A word of explanation must therefore be provided to justify our use of the term “religious” in the title of this chapter. What we are trying to identify are those elements or sources of inspiration in early Islamic art that could not have …
PublisherYale University Press
Related print edition pages: pp.99-131
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00135.008

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Description: The Formation of Islamic Art
The previous three chapters have considered those early Islamic monuments or attitudes whose functions and forms were directly inspired by the new faith or by the state and civilization derived from it. These monuments and attitudes had a culturally restricted significance and—even though they were not always strictly speaking religious—pietistic and ritual needs, habits, and symbols tended to predominate in their evolution, if not in their creation. Coinage acquired Koranic quotations, the Dome …
PublisherYale University Press
Related print edition pages: pp.132-177
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00135.009

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Description: The Formation of Islamic Art
Throughout the preceding chapters we have encountered a rather unusual problem, which can be defined by a few examples. With the Dome of the Rock and the mosque of Damascus, it was pointed out that a symbolic or iconographic meaning could be given to some of the motifs found on the mosaics covering most of their walls. But these meanings were soon lost, they did not “take” within the active living tradition of Islamic art. Furthermore, without denying an original symbolic significance, the …
PublisherYale University Press
Related print edition pages: pp.178-194
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00135.010

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Description: The Formation of Islamic Art
The purpose of this book was neither to provide a coherent and complete history of early Islamic art nor to present a monographic study of individual monuments, but rather to propose answers to two questions. One is whether there is a way of defining the nature of the changes, if any, in aesthetic and material creativity brought about by the phenomenon of an Islamic world. A corollary question is whether a time—absolute or relative—can be assigned to the acceptance of these alleged changes by …
PublisherYale University Press
Related print edition pages: pp.195-202
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00135.011

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Description: The Formation of Islamic Art
It is admittedly not very proper for an author to express satisfaction at the critical success of his work. If I allow myself to do this, it is because the critical response to it led me eventually to ask new questions requiring more rigorous analysis and subtler conclusions than appeared in the original version. …
PublisherYale University Press
Related print edition pages: pp.203-213
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00135.012

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Description: The Formation of Islamic Art
This is merely a list of the most salient dates and rulers pertinent to an understanding of the text. For more complete and easily accessible information see Clifford E. Bosworth, The Islamic Dynasties (Edinburgh, 1967) and James J. Saunders, A History of Medieval
PublisherYale University Press
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00135.013

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Description: The Formation of Islamic Art
Bibliography
PublisherYale University Press
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00135.014

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Free
Description: The Formation of Islamic Art
Index
PublisherYale University Press
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00135.015
The Formation of Islamic Art
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