CategoriesCultural and Religious Styles
Islamic Art and Architecture
Architecture, calligraphy, ceramics, metalwork, carpets and painting from lands shaped by Islam, from Spain to India, since the 7th century.
No works indexed yet · 4 related artists
No open-access works for Islamic Art and Architecture are in the index yet. They will appear here as more collections are indexed.
About
The phrase covers some fourteen centuries of building and making, from Spain and West Africa to Central Asia and India. Mosques set the architectural types: a prayer hall oriented towards Mecca, a niche called the mihrab, often a courtyard and minaret, as in the Great Mosque of Córdoba, begun in 785, with its forest of striped double arches. Writing holds a special place. Early Qur'ans were copied in angular Kufic on parchment, and rounder scripts later spread across tiles, textiles and brass.
Craft reached great heights at court and in cities. Potters in 9th-century Iraq pioneered lustre painting with a metallic sheen; Mamluk glassmakers in Cairo enamelled mosque lamps; Persian painters such as Sultan Muhammad filled the Shahnama made for Shah Tahmasp (about 1520–40) with jewel-like colour, and the Ardabil carpet (1539–40) shows how far Safavid weaving could go. Look for interlocking stars, knotted borders and inscriptions woven into ornament.
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