The impact of Islamic arts on the West
LeNoir
The idea of a traditional Islamic art and architecture that began in
7th-century Syria and grew to encompass the art and architecture of lands
from the Atlantic to the Indian oceans, write Blair and Bloom (1994), is a
creation of late 19th- and 20th-century Western thought. According to Blair
and Bloom, there is no evidence that early Muslim artists ever thought of
their work as Islamic.
Nor can it be said that there is a dominant style or influence that defines
Islamic art. The Moorish Alhambra and the Indian Taj Mahal show that Islamic
art and architecture has definite regional variations. However, scholars
have devoted much effort to the identification of unifying principles in
Islamic art -- geometric design and the arabesque, for example.
It can be said, however, that the art and architecture of Islamic countries
has long influenced the West. Blair and Bloom note that a painting such as
The Reception of a Venetian Embassy in Damascus , attributed to the school
of Bellini in the early 16th century, was undoubtedly the work of an artist
familiar with the topography and monuments of Damascus. And the 17th-century
Dutch painter Rembrandt owned a collection of several dozen Mughal and
Deccani paintings which he copied.
The influential Viennese publication of Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach's
general history of architecture in 1721 included Arab, Turkish and Persian
architectural representations. The book lead to the design of several
European structures in a quasi-Oriental manner. Write Bloom and Blair,
"Although Fischer von Erlach's sources were such public monuments as
mosques, the resulting designs were almost exclusively for such civil
structures as kiosks, pavilions, palaces, and theaters, all pertaining to an
architecture of leisure with which the Orient was invariably associated."
In 1750, Frederick, the Prince of Wales, commissioned the English architect
William Chambers (1723-1796) to design an "Alhambra" for the gardens at Kew.
The resulting design had little in common with the original Alhambra in
Spain except for the paired slender columns used for support. Chambers
followed this design with an octagonal pavilion in the form of a mosque. "It
was based on a free improvisation on the domed Ottoman mosques flanked by
minarets illustrated by Fischer von Erlach," write Blair and Bloom. "A
pagoda completed the trio of exotic buildings... at Kew."
As European visitors to Turkey became familiar with the kiosks in public
gardens where coffee and other beverages were served, the visitors brought
home their interest in the structures. And the new kiosks built in Europe
not only served their original function as garden pavilions but also
developed into band-stands and news-stands.
British artists and architects also found inspiration in the monuments of
Muslim India. One of the first British artists to visit Agra, William Hodges
(1746-1797), drew and painted the beauties of the Taj Mahal. And English
landscape painter Thomas Daniell (1749-1840) published Oriental Scenery in
six folio-sized parts between 1795 and 1808. Blair and Bloom write that each
part had 24 hand-colored aquatint plates that brought Indian scenes to a
wide audience. The popularity of the prints led Daniell to publish a
separate volume dedicated exclusively to the Taj Mahal. Daniell later was
hired as a consultant to help design a British residence with such features
as a bulbous dome with corner chatris and overhanging eaves, cusped arches
and pinnacles.
The future George IV commissioned architect John Nash (1752-1835) to remodel
an unfinished structure at the Royal Pavilion. With inspiration from
Daniell's publications, Nash designed a pavilion with a large central ogival
dome offset by four subsidiary domes. "The Oriental fantasy," write Blair
and Bloom, "extended as far as the kitchens, where iron palm trees with
copper fronds support the roof, but Nash used the latest technology, such as
cast-iron ceiling frames and columns. In addition to giving the royal nod to
the Oriental mode, the building set the style for glazed conservatories with
bulbous domes."
Also drawing numerous visitors from Europe and America was the Alhambra.
After visiting the site, British architect Owen Jones ( designed two
palatial houses in Kensington Palace Gardens in the Moorish style. And in
1854, he created an Alhambra Court, following the Court of the Lions, for
the reconstructed Crystal Palace in Sydenham.
Some of the earliest and finest examples of Orientalism in Western painting
were produced by French artist Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863) who had been to
Morocco in 1832. Write Blair and Bloom, "(Delacroix's) opportunity to visit
a harem, apparently the dream of almost every nineteenth-century man,
resulted in a picture such as his Femmes d'Alger , painted two years later
in 1834."
After touring Syria, Palestine and Europe, American landscape painter
Fredric Church (1826-1900) did a series of Mediterranean compositions that
included scenes from Jerusalem and Petra. Church also returned from his trip
with an enthusiasm for Islamic architecture. And after 1870, he devoted most
of his efforts to the design and construction of his estate at
Greendale-on-Hudson, New York. The mansion was called Olana, from the Arabic
word for "our place on high." Blair and Bloom write that the house combined
Alhambra motifs, simplified Hindu detail and Persian tilework. Piazza
columns and the stencils in the Court Hall also are based on Persian motifs.
A number of 19th-century international exhibitions further introduced the
West to Islamic arts. The Great Exhibition of 1851 at London's Crystal
Palace included Persian exhibits of carpets and carpet design that held
influence over William Morris (1834-1896), the poet, designer and theorist
of the Arts and Crafts movement. Morris did not imitate the Persian designs
but found inspiration in their geometric patterns. Morris' own carpet
designs -- with their rich colors, coherent patterns and planar surfaces --
show the impact Persian Vase carpets had on the English artist, write Blair
and Bloom.
Discerning European collectors were drawn to ceramics from the Islamic
world. British collectors amassed collections of Ottoman ceramics known as
Damascus or Rhodian wares, as well as Persian luster tiles and vessels. And,
according to Blair and Bloom, this interest led to a revival of luster
techniques in Europe. The designs of ceramicist-artist William De Morgan
(1839-1917), continue Blair and Bloom, exemplify the Islamic mood that began
to appear in the 1880s, partly as an expression of the Near Eastern
romanticism and partly because of the affinity of the arabesque with the
sinuous forms favored by the Art Noveau movement.
According to Blair and Bloom, the French painter Henri Matisse (1869-1954)
may be the greatest Western artist to integrate his own work with the
influences of Islamic art. Matisse not only attended a number of exhibitions
of Islamic art, but he also traveled to southern Spain, Morocco and Algeria.
Blair and Bloom write that while Matisse's predecessors had added Oriental
motifs to give their works an exotic flavor, Matisse actually incorporated
the lessons he learned from viewing Islamic art into his paintings. In The
Painter's Family , for example, Matisse's tripartite composition and the
flattened perspective are devices common to Persian manuscript paintings, as
are the figures that seem to float in space.