DU1752 Introduction to Islamic Visual and Material Cultures

Faculty of Arts
Autumn 2023
Extent and Intensity
2/0/0. 5 credit(s). Recommended Type of Completion: zk (examination). Other types of completion: z (credit).
Teacher(s)
Adrien Palladino, M.A., Ph.D. (lecturer)
Guaranteed by
Adrien Palladino, M.A., Ph.D.
Department of Art History – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: Adrien Palladino, M.A., Ph.D.
Supplier department: Department of Art History – Faculty of Arts
Timetable
Thu 12:00–13:40 K32, except Thu 16. 11.
Prerequisites
No specific pre-requisites.
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is offered to students of any study field.
Course objectives
The course introduces the visual arts and material cultures produced from ca. the seventh century up until the sixteenth century CE by people who lived within territories inhabited by Muslim populations. It questions the historiographical notion of “Islamic art” as a problematic categorization born in the nineteenth century and presents in a critical light questions such as the roots of Islamic attitude towards images, the image problem, or the alleged non-representational (geometric, abstract) character of Islamic visual culture. It likewise focuses on the manifold interactions of this visual culture with others across the premodern Mediterranean and beyond. Presenting the visual cultures of pre-Islamic Arabia to the Mughals, this course presents objects and materials which will offer to students a different, and nuanced, introduction to the arts of Islamic culture.
Learning outcomes
After completing the course, a student will:
- be able to critically assess the application of the term “Islamic art” to a series of premodern artworks and monuments
- possess a nuanced overview of objects and forms of Islamic visual and material culture, from ca. 7th–16th centuries
- have learned to apply art historical methods to the investigation of materials
- be aware of the manifold intersections between archaeology, anthropology, and art history to decompartmentalize “Islamic” art and architecture
Syllabus
  • Introduction: “Islamic art” as a historiographical issue
  • Arabia and pre-Islamic Visual Cultures
  • Islam: The Making of a New Religion in the Mediterranean World
  • Conquest, Interactions, and the Invention of a New Culture of Images (7th–10th c.)
  • Al-Andalus and Sicily: two cases of Islamic art in the “West”
  • Transformations and Contacts: from the Crusades to the Mamluks
  • New Powers, New Images: Ottomans, Timurids, and Mughals
  • Aniconism, Iconoclasm, Negotiations: The “Image Problem” in Islam
Literature
    required literature
  • GRABAR, Oleg. The mediation of ornament. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1992, xxv, 284. ISBN 0691040990. info
    recommended literature
  • GRABAR, Oleg. The Dome of Rock. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006, ix, 234. ISBN 9780674023130. info
  • ETTINGHAUSEN, Richard, Oleg GRABAR and Marilyn JENKINS. Islamic art and architecture, 650-1250. New Haven: Yale University, 2001, xiii, 344. ISBN 9780300088694. info
  • FLOOD, Finbarr Barry. The Great Mosque of Damascus : studies on the makings of an Umayyad visual culture. Leiden: Brill, 2001, xx, 330. ISBN 9789004116382. info
  • GRABAR, Oleg. The formation of Islamic art. Revised and enlarged edition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987, xix, 232. ISBN 9780300040463. info
    not specified
  • Constructing the image of Muhammad in Europe. Edited by Heather Coffey - Michelina Di Cesare - Alberto Saviello - Avinoam Shal. 1 online r. ISBN 9783110300826. info
  • Islamic art and visual culture : an anthology of sources. Edited by D. Fairchild Ruggles. 1st ed. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011, ix, 186. ISBN 9781405154024. info
  • The future of tradition - the tradition of future : 100 years after the exhibition Masterpieces of Muhammadan Art in Munich = 100 Jahre nach der Ausstellung Meisterwerke muhammedanischer Kunst in München. Edited by Chris Dercon - León Krempel - Avinoam Shalem. München: Haus der Kunst, 2010, 128 s. ISBN 9783791350851. info
  • FLOOD, Finbarr Barry. Objects of translation : material culture and medieval "Hindu-Muslim" encounter. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009, xv, 366. ISBN 9780691180748. info
  • Mschatta. Edited by Ernst Kühnel. Berlin: Würfel-Verlag, 1933, 15 s. info
Teaching methods
Interactive lecture in presence.
Additional recommended or required readings not present in the current list will be made available in the lecture's materials
Assessment methods
Students will be asked to write a final essay on a selected object, contextualized within the issues discussed during the lecture.
Language of instruction
Czech
Further Comments
Study Materials
The course is taught annually.
  • Enrolment Statistics (recent)
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