Islamic Art in the 19th Century: Tradition, Innovation, And Eclecticism

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Doris Behrens-Abouseif, Stephen Vernoit
BRILL, 2006 - Social Science - 446 pages
This collection of essays provides a timely reassessment of nineteenth-century Islamic art and architecture. The essays demonstrate that the arts of that era were vibrant and diverse, making ingenious use of native traditions and materials or adopting imported conventions and new technologies. However, traditionalists, revivalists and modernists all referred in one way or another to an Islamic heritage, whether to reinvent, revive or reject it. Beginning with an historical introduction and an assessment of changing attitudes towards the visual arts the following essays provide case studies of architecture and art in Ottoman Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, sub-Saharan Africa, Iran, Central Asia, India and the Caribbean. They examine such issues as patronage, sources of artistic inspiration and responses to European art. The essays have a relevance and importance for our understanding of the societies and attitudes of that time, and have a direct bearing on the more general debate concerning cultural identity and the integration of modern ideas in the Muslim world. The book is richly illustrated with very many illustrations in black-and-white and in full colour.

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Contents

The Visual Arts in NineteenthCentury Muslim Thought
19
After Müstakimzade
89
The Visual Transformation of Egypt during the Reign
109
Appropriating Orientalism? Saber Sabris Mamluk Revivals
131
The Survival of Textile Manufacture in Morocco in
157
Islam and West African Art History
191
Ancestral Themes in the Art of Qajar Iran 17851925
231
The Visual Language of Qajar Medals
305
Iranian Pottery in the Nineteenth
333
NineteenthCentury Tilework at Khiva
363
Architecture and Identity in Three Indian States
387
Art for TwentyFour Hours
409
Select Bibliography
433
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About the author (2006)

Stephen Vernoit, D.Phil. (1990) at St. Antony's College, Oxford University, was research fellow in Islamic art and architecture at St. Antony's College and has subsequently lectured on Islamic history and art at Al-Akhawayn University in Morocco and at Durham University in England. His publications include Occidentalism: Islamic Art in the 19th Century(1997).Doris Behrens Abouseif, Ph.D. Hamburg, Habilitation: Freiburg, is since 2000 holder of the Nasser D. Khalili chair of Islamic Art and Archaeology at SOAS, University of London. She has taught at the American University in Cairo, and the Universities of Munich and Freiburg. She has written numerous publications including The Minarets of Cairo, (AUC Press 1985), Egypt's adjustment to Ottoman Rule, (Brill, 1994) and Beauty in Arabic Culture, (Princeton 1999).

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