User talk:Johnbod/Ice Age art

Hi Johnbod,

Good start. I'll be adding some sources and comments below:

• [1] - states that depictions of Muhammad had never been done in the Islamic world prior to the late 13th century (footnote 177 mentions a depiction of Muhammad in a 1299 copy of the Marzubannama made in Baghdad) --JN466 04:19, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

That's more than anyone knows for sure. Elverskog is not a specialist here. Johnbod (talk) 14:50, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Christiane says,

This is a tricky question because the lack of images of Muhammad prior to the 13th century most likely is the result of a variety of factors. Perhaps the most important among these is the accident of history: when the Mongols invaded Baghdad in 1258, they burned down the "Bayt al-Hikma" (House of Wisdom), the major library of the 'Abbasids. Thus countless books were destroyed, some of them possibly illustrated. So that is the big lacuna in the history of Islamic book painting in general: we just don't know much about painting on paper prior to the Mongols because the materials were unfortunately destroyed.

This said, there are paintings of human figures in some extant manuscripts that were produced prior to the 13th century. These images are primarily found in illustrated copies of al-Hariri's "Maqamat" (Sessions).

Thirdly, and this is the ironic twist in history, the Mongols' successors-- the Ilkhanids-- became the most prolific patrons of Islamic painting in the medieval period. As you have noted, the Ilkhanid ruling elite's patronage of the pictorial art was new and surely influenced by a wide array of figural traditions, among them Buddhist religious figural arts found all along the Silk Road. However, Buddhism is not the only part of the equation. Some Ilkhanid rulers (like Oljeitu) were born Nestorian Christians and converted to Islam, while other high ranking patrons (like the vizier Rashid al-Din) converted from Judaism to Islam. These patrons, just like the painters who were drawn from China, Central Asia, Georgia, Byzantine & Syriac areas, etc., harked from lands that had long-standing pictorial traditions. So, in general, in the earliest religious images of Muhammad made in Islamic lands, we cannot help but noticed some Buddhist and Christian influences. I think this mix of artistic traditions helped propel the production of 'picturations' of the Prophet Muhammad according to a variety of religio-cultural customs across Asia to the Mediterranean. --JN466 21:53, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• • Footnote 178 is also interesting: it refers to an account of a manuscript auction in Anatolia in 1655, where a member of the public defaced one of the manuscripts on offer. Far from being praised, he was chided for being a philistine, and then lashed and stoned. --JN466 04:24, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
• "It was not until the middle of the 13th century that Muhammad was depicted as well." [2] --JN466 04:25, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Ok, will change. Johnbod (talk) 15:02, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

• Could we say that calligraphic renderings are common "throughout" the Islamic world, rather than "more widespread"? There is Arabic calligraphy even on mosques in China, Malaysia and Indonesia.

maybe, though its a big statement. Johnbod (talk) 14:50, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

From Christiane:

Nowadays calligrams of Muhammad's name are widespread because of an increased global shunning of figural imagery, which noticeably accelerated after the Danish cartoon controversy of 2005-6. However, the hilye (verbal icon) proper is particularly Ottoman-Turkish and is being revived actively in Turkey today. --JN466 21:53, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• Of the five Islamic images we show presently, three (not two) are unveiled; one is veiled, one is flame. (Omid recommended asking Gruber about overall percentages, and I've dropped her a line.) --JN466 04:36, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, yes, changed. Gruber has a book coming on the whole subject that was due this year but has now been put back. Johnbod (talk) 14:50, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

• Do we have sources for 7.? I thought the veiled depictions began after 1500. Cf. Gruber, pp. 46ff. According to Gruber, these images were intended for the rulers' "closest circles" (p. 47), and the veiling was actually originally done to allow the conflation of the Shah's own identity with that of the prophet (!) (p. 49). --JN466 04:46, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Indeed, that needs some clarifications as well. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 13:40, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't want to get too detailed here. Gruber's other piece on the images with a written "Ya Muhammad" under a blank face were the source. I'll dig it up later, but such images start before 1500 I'm pretty sure. Johnbod (talk) 14:50, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

From Christiane:

The data suggests that the first veiled image of Muhammad-- i.e., an image of Muhammad with a veil painted at the time of the image's production, rather than a veil added retroactively to a veristic depiction-- was produced just after 1500, during the first decade of Safavid rule in Iran.

She also says that as it stands, This is an excellent list: it is succinct without being overly simplistic. Impressive! :) --JN466 21:53, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

11

"Although in modern times images of Muhammad are mostly found in Shia contexts, this was not always the case." It's probably better to spell out here that the unveiled images were predominantly Persian Sunni. The transition to Shi'ism as official religion in the 1500s Persia coincided with the new, veiled artistic trend, although it was more than just a coincidence per Gruber's paper on this topic [3]. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 13:38, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Some were Ottoman too, and assigning the Jami to Sunni/Shia is complicated by the vizier's conversion from Sunni to Shia (following his sultan) in the middle of the period they were being made. Johnbod (talk) 15:00, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

"figurative"

I would prefer we use "anthropomorphic" (or another more precise word) because hilya and calligraphy are even more figurative in one sense of the word "figurative". ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 13:46, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I think it is referring to figurative art. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:25, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Mail from Christiane

I've had a reply from Christiane about the question of relative frequency of the various types of images. It's a good one, and vindicates some of Johnbod's earlier concerns:

---

Your question about images of Muhammad-- unveiled, veiled, and as a flaming bundle-- is an excellent one. Most scholars will tell you that veiled images of Muhammad outnumber unveiled ones, but their statement is not based on any systematic research into the subject, and certainly not based on any firm statistics. The reason that this recycled truism has come to dominate is based on the nature of scholarly research within the field of Islamic art, namely its heavy focus on Safavid painting as "classical" or "high quality" pictorial art. Veiled images of Muhammad most certainly dominate in Safavid Persian painting from ca. 1505-1700-- and in fact, more narrowly, from 1505-1600. In this instance, we can confidently state that Muhammad is almost without exception rendered with a facial veil.

But that is only one fragment of the story, and it only covers 16th-century Iran. There are numerous images of Muhammad shown unveiled in illustrated manuscripts and paintings produced in the Turco-Persian world from ca. 1307-1505. In fact, during these two centuries (14th-15th centuries), the veristic pictorial mode is the accepted norm. So if we were to reangle our focus away from the Safavids and look instead to the Ilkhanids and Timurids, then we would have to conclude that unveiled images dominate instead.

As you can see, it all depends on the chronological and geographical bracketing. Moreover, our conclusions, at this juncture, should be conclusions based on a series of pictorial clusters, in which we see a clear development from veristic images (14-15th centuries) to veiled images (16th century) to, in the Indian subcontinent, flaming bundle (18th century), to absolutely abstract hilye renderings in Ottoman Turkey (17th-19th centuries). The best way to stay as true as possible to the data is to simply conclude that each genre held sway at a particular place and time. I would stay away from concluding that any one genre dominated over the other; they simply fluctuated until the modern period, until, for many complex politico-cultural reasons, images of Muhammad began to disappear.

To my mind, the scholar and student of Islamic art has to show an openness of mind and a willingness to look at the data with no other agenda (such as a predisposition to claim that only unveiled images are normative, to be open to the fact that they could be sponsored in Sunni, rather than Shi'i, milieus, and so forth). These prejudices are sometimes hard to overcome for the believer and/or non-specialist ...

---

Of course you could argue that the fact that scholarly reception has focused on Safavid depictions means that we should give them marginally more weight than the others, but it's nice to finally have some authoritative info! --JN466 18:01, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I commented at the page. As she's so helpful, it would be great if we could get her comments on a final list of "propositions" worked out here. Johnbod (talk) 21:21, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

More

• Seems like an excellent starting point - good work John.
• Personally I particularly don't like the wording of 4 mentioning only the Arabs - however I don't feel that unless evidence is presented about how the Chinese/Indians/South East Asians show Muhammad that anything else would be any better. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:53, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Nothing is said, or I think implied, about them - none of us really know, although I doubt they have many images. We could say we are talking of the "core" Islamic lands, which is a common way of describing the ones mentioned. Johnbod (talk) 20:38, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I think I dislike "core Islamic lands" more than the current wording :p.

I think it is probably is worth dropping an email to the Islamic art museum of Kuala Lumpur, I don't know if they will respond, but it is a decent museum and that might provide something useful to fill the hole in our knowledge. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:49, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure of the relevance of 4. Throughout history "Persian" and Arab lands were often parts of the same empire or Caliphate, as later Ottoman and Arab lands were. Bagdhad and Misr (Cairo) and Damascus and Palestine and the Hijaz among them. For example, the fourth image here was created in Bagdhad. [4] I'm not sure dividing up the Ummah that way makes much sense. For example, the painter of the life of the Prophet in the Jami is known to have used Mesopotamian and Syrian techniques, developed during the Umayyad, right? Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:22, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

The division is linguistic rather than political, and that works better; it is pretty universal in scholarship on Islamic history. Johnbod (talk) 21:46, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Except No. 4 says "geography" and the Empires and Caliphates were multilingual, generally with Arabic. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:54, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but geography and language (apart from the Turks replacing Christians) remained broadly static - people in Bagdhad spoke Arabic whether ruled from Persia, Syria or Turkey. Johnbod (talk) 00:45, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

But if the Ottomans are producing work in Baghdad or Cairo, and the Savafids in Damascus or Acre, then its in "Arab lands." Also if an artist travels from Damascus to Tabriz to paint or an artist in Baghdad sends his work to Tabriz or Istanbul to be bound, than what difference does it make? Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:02, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• On a more general note to the extent you are using Art History terms or other specialized terms, like Islamic Art or figurative art or narrative art, it would seem to be a good idea to link them to something so everyone knows what is intended. Thanks.Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:22, 6 February 2012 (UTC)