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Tabbaa’s Transformation offers an innovative approach to understanding the profound changes undergone by Islamic art and architecture during the often neglected Medieval Islamic period. Examining devices such as calligraphy, arabesque, muqarnas, and stonework, Tabbaa argues we propagated in a moment of confrontation and facilitated the re-emergence of the Sunni Abbasid caliphate in a more orthodox image. Tabbaa offers a timely and thought-provoking alternative to conventional essentialist, positivist and ethno-narrative interpretations of Islamic art.
"Muqarnas" is sponsored by The Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts. In "Muqarnas" articles are being published on all aspects of Islamic visual culture, historical and contemporary, as well as articles dealing with unpublished textual primary sources.
The transformation of Islamic architecture and ornament during the eleventh and twelfth centuries signaled profound cultural changes in the Islamic world. Yasser Tabbaa explores with exemplary lucidity the geometric techniques that facilitated this transformation, and investigates the cultural processes by which meaning was produced within the new forms. Iran, Iraq, and Syria saw the development of proportional calligraphy, vegetal and geometric arabesque, muqarnas (stalactite) vaulting, and other devices that became defining features of medieval Islamic architecture. Ultimately, the forms and themes described in this book shaped the development of Mamluk architecture in Egypt and Syria, and...
This volume collects Yasser Tabbaa's investigative and interpretive articles on medieval Islamic architecture, ornament and gardens in Syria and Iraq, with comparisons to Anatolia, Egypt, North Africa and Spain, within the context of the political divisions and theological ruptures of the Islamic world between the 11th and 13th centuries.
Ilkhanid Capital Cities studies the capital cities founded by the Mongol Ilkhans in Iran during the Ilkhanid period (1256–1335). It primarily focuses on two major cities in the northwest of Iran, Ghazaniyya and Sultaniyya, and examines how the court-sponsored urban projects in these two cities reflected the interactions between Perso-Islamic sedentary concepts and Mongolian nomadic traditions.Questioning the earlier reductive scholarly framework that positioned the Mongols as uncultured barbarians, this study stresses the active role of the Mongol elite not only as agents, but also cultural donors in the Perso-Mongol cultural zeitgeist of late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century Iran. It provides a fuller and more convincing picture of the Ilkhanid city, which is characterized by a hybrid quality injected not only into the physical structure of the city, but also into the taste, motivations and world views of its patrons.
No detailed description available for "Islamic Calligraphy".
This book is a study of architecture and urban design across the Mediterranean Sea from the 12th to the 14th Century, a time when there was no single, hegemonic power dominating the area. The focus of the study--four cities on the Italian peninsula, and four in Syria and Egypt--is the interconnectedness of the design and use of urban structures, streets and open space. Each chapter offers an historical analysis of the buildings and spaces used for trade, education, political display and public action. The work includes historical and social analyses of the mercantile, social, political and educational cultures of the eight cities, highlighting similarities and differences between Christian and Islamic practices. Sixteen new maps drawn specifically for this book are based on the writings of medieval travelers.
This innovative new volume offers an in-depth exploration of scale, one of the most crucial elements in the creation and reception of art. Illustrates how scale has compelled audiences to rethink the significance and importance of specific works of art Takes a comparative art historical approach exploring issues of scale in an array of forms, from Islamic architecture to contemporary photography A global consideration of scale, with examples of work from ancient Egypt, eighteenth-century Korea, and contemporary Europe The newest addition to the Art History Special Issue Book Series
Tabbaa argues that the intense palatial and religious architectural activity of the period was intended to create a royal image of the Ayyubid state while also fostering links between it and the urban population. His study is based on an entirely new evaluation of the architectural and epigraphic aspects of the standing monuments of the period. It presents for the first time full photographic coverage of these monuments, as well as many new plans and other renderings, and pays close attention to monumental inscriptions, correcting and augmenting previous studies. The book utilizes the full panoply of the available literary sources, including topographies, chronicles, travel accounts, and poetry.
Foreword / Richard E. Toscan -- Introduction / Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom -- Gardens beneath which rivers flow : the significance of water in classical Islamic culture / Carole Hillenbrand -- Control and abandon : images of water in Arabic poetry and gardens / Yasser Tabbaa -- From the heavens and hills : the flow of water to the fruited trees and ablution fountains in the Great Mosque of Córdoba / D. Fairchild Ruggles -- Sip, dip, and pour : toward a typology of water vessels in Islamic art / Linda Komaroff -- Stones to bring rain? : magical inscriptions in linear Kufic on rock crystal amulet-seals / Venetia Porter -- Charity and piety : Sabil-Kuttabs and the conception of water durin...