Author Description
The Art Of The Object Reached Unparalleled Heights In The Medieval Islamic World, Yet The Intellectual Dimensions Of Ceramics, Metalwares, And Other Plastic Arts In This Milieu Have Not Always Been Acknowledged. Arts Of Allusion Reveals The Object As A Crucial Site Where Pre-modern Craftsmen Of The Eastern Mediterranean And Persianate Realms Engaged In Fertile Dialogue With Poetry, Literature, Painting, And, Perhaps Most Strikingly, Architecture. Lanterns Fashioned After Miniature Shrines, Incense Burners In The Form Of Domed Monuments, Earthenware Jars Articulated With Arches And Windows, Inkwells That Allude To Tents: Through Close Studies Of Objects From The Ninth To The Thirteenth Centuries, This Book Reveals That Allusions To Architecture Abound Across Media In The Portable Arts Of The Medieval Islamic World. Arts Of Allusion Draws Upon A Broad Range Of Material Evidence As Well As Medieval Texts To Locate Its Subjects In A Cultural Landscape Where The Material, Visual, And Verbal Realms Were Intertwined. Moving Far Beyond The Initial Identification Of Architectural Types With Their Miniature Counterparts In The Plastic Arts, Margaret Graves Develops A Series Of New Frameworks For Exploring The Intelligent Art Of The Allusive Object. These Address Materiality, Representation, And Perception, And Examine Contemporary Literary And Poetic Paradigms Of Metaphor, Description, And Indirect Reference As Tools For Approaching The Plastic Arts. Arguing For The Role Of The Intellect In The Applied Arts And For The Communicative Potential Of Ornament, Arts Of Allusion Asserts The Reinstatement Of Craftsmanship Into Islamic Intellectual History.
Menrva's Summary
THE THESIS
This book investigates how medieval Islamic craftsmen utilized the plastic arts to engage in complex intellectual dialogues with literature, poetry, and architecture. Margaret S. Graves, an expert in Islamic art and material culture, synthesizes archaeological evidence with medieval textual sources to argue that objects were not merely functional, but served as sophisticated vehicles for metaphorical and architectural allusion. By analyzing the interplay between the material, visual, and verbal, the author establishes a framework for understanding the intellectual agency of the artisan in the Eastern Mediterranean and Persianate worlds.
THE SCOPE MAP
What You Will Find
- Analysis of portable objects including ceramics, metalwares, incense burners, and inkwells.
- A methodological framework for interpreting materiality, representation, and perception in applied arts.
- Integration of contemporary literary and poetic paradigms to decode ornamental meaning.
Scope Limits
- The study is geographically restricted to the Eastern Mediterranean and Persianate realms.
- The chronological focus is limited to the ninth through the thirteenth centuries.
THE AUTHORITY PERSPECTIVE
Scholars and art historians recognize this work as a significant contribution to the study of Islamic material culture, particularly for its focus on the intellectual dimensions of craftsmanship. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose, which is intended for specialists and students of medieval history and art theory.
Page Count:
320
Publication Date:
2018-01-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0190695927
ISBN-13:
9780190695927
Architecture
Islamic Studies
Art History
Decorative Arts