Art of the Islamic World: Spine or cover with flaws

Author: Owen
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-08-01
Features: This book is an overview of Islamic world culture and art, blending them into one. The author adopts a thematic and relatively loose organizational approach, discussing artworks and artistic phenomena from a vast geographical area, including Spain, Morocco, and Afghanistan, from around the 5th century to the late 17th century. In the book, the author attempts to place art within its contemporary social, economic, and cultural context, striving to explore the reasons behind the emergence of certain artworks or artistic phenomena and to summarize and evaluate Islamic art. As an art history work, the book first discusses the origins of Islamic art and the rise of Islam and the formation of Islamic states. It then delves into a series of complex relationships in chapters: the relationship between mosques, palaces, palace life, and their respective decorations and furnishings with the entire Islamic society; the interactive relationships among artists, guilds, and craftsmanship techniques in various fields such as metalwork, ceramics, textiles, glass, and jade; the relationship between literature and art, particularly in-depth discussions on the perception of "beauty" by literary figures, calligraphy, and book illustrations; the theories of color, perspective, and form among people at the time, as well as the relationship between the development of astronomy, astrology, science, and magic and the changes in artistic discoveries; and the interactive relationships between Islamic art and China and the West. By reading this book, readers will gain a relatively detailed understanding of Islamic art.