Studies in the Islamic Decorative Arts

Islamic artists channelled their energies not into easel painting and large-scale sculpture, but rather into what Western scholars, obeying a very different hierarchy of art forms, rather disparagingly term the decorative arts or even the minor arts. In point of fact, some of the greatest masterpieces of Islamic art are in the media of ceramics, metalwork, textiles, ivory and glass. Often the images they bear express a complex set of meanings, for Islam inherited much material from the iconographic systems of earlier civilizations, notably those of the ancient Near East and of the classical world. Islam also developed its own distinctive vocabulary of signs and symbols. Accordingly, questions of iconography and meaning bulk large among the studies gathered together in the present volume.

These studies, written over a period of almost thirty years, and taken from a wide variety of published sources, deal with aspects of the decorative arts from Spain to India and from the 7th to the 17th century. They focus in turn upon ceramics and metalwork; on coins, carpets and calligraphy; and on carving in wood and ivory. They are arranged under three headings. The first comprises general surveys of the field covering the content of these arts and confronting the challenges they present, such as the Islamic approach to three-dimensional sculpture. The second deals with questions of iconography and meaning, while the third comprises a series of studies devoted to specific media such as ivory, woodwork and numismatics. This volume therefore offers not only a general introduction to some of the problems posed by Islamic art, but also readings of key objects in an attempt to explore their meaning; and finally, an in-depth focus on individual objects representing specific genres and media.

Table of Contents:
Preface
Images of Authority on Kashan Lustreware
The sarcophagus of Shah Isma’il at Ardabil
Problems in Islamic Pottery
Review article. Persian Lustre Ware
Richard Ettinghausen and the iconography of Islamic art
Figural calligraphy in the Muslim world;
Introduction: The Orient of the Imagination
For God, Empire and Mammon: Some Art-Historical Aspects of the Reformed Dinars of ‘Abd al-Malik
The Soul of Islamic Art
The Syrian Connection: Archaic Elements in Spanish Umayyad Ivories;
Islamic Figural Sculpture
Islamic Art. Infinite Riches in a Little Room?
What Happened to the Sasanian Hunt in Islamic Art
The major minor arts of Islam
Recent Work on Islamic Iconography
The Islamic re-working of the Sasanian heritage: two case studies
A Leaf from My Rose Garden
Oleg Grabar, Distinguished Historian of Islamic Art
Oleg Grabar, the Scholarly Legacy
Wine in Islamic Art and Society
Index