Art
The Willow Tree: A saga of sight and insight
In his Mathnawi, Rumi tells the story of a lover who goes to his beloved and knocks on the door: The beloved from behind the door asked: “Who is at the door?” The lover answered: ‘I.’ Disappointed, the beloved said. “Go away! It is not the proper time! Here is no place for such a […]
Much Beyond the Dance
Type Jalauddin Rumi in your image search box. In the first page view itself, you see the white-robed dancers with one hand holding aloft to the sky and the other holding down. Martin Lings, in What is Sufism explains it as two points in human existence: Ethereal and ephemeral. In Istanbul, where in the deluge […]
Hijab : fashion in a rebellious choice
We have long got past the days, when we thought of fashion as something which turned its back to tradition. Modernity wedded to tradition has been the manthra for much too long. That is why ‘hijab fashion’ or ‘muhajjaba models’ are the active registers in the fashion world. Fashion world will now have to think […]
Islamic Gallery at Louvre: Good, Bad and Ugly Islams
“There is a distance between what was the Muslim civilisation, the Islamic civilisation, and its contribution to world history and what is happening now,” says Sophie Makariou, the director of the Islamic Art Department, in the context of France’s famous Louvre gallery opening a new wing dedicated to the art of Islam. The Islamic wing […]
What is Eating Our Frames?
What happens when we watch food on screen? There may not be a unanimous feedback to this question, as eating and watching movies are deeply related to our varying subjective moods. But Maharshi Bhasa, the ancient theatre theorist from India, has said to the effect that food and sex need only be alluded on stage. […]
Capturing the Spirit of Ramadan
Islamic art can’t remain aloof from political concerns all around, as art comes to terms with the identity of Muslims constructed the world over. Ahmad Abull Hafeeth Mesleh’s camera clicked a rare moment in the occupied Qudus on 17th August this year. People stand in queue but they are invisible and blurred the symbol of […]
Expo of Imam Ali Paintings at Tehran
An exhibition of rare paintings of Imam Ali is attracting scores of people to Tehran, the capital of Iran during the current fall of the holy Ramadan. Tehran’s Shokuh Gallery hosts the event, the first ever such venture to showcase the portraits of Ali, a very important figure in the history of Islam, especially for […]
Lubna Agha: Inheritance from a Loss
Visit the website of Lubna Agha, an honored Pakistani painter based in America (the link is listed towards the end of this article); you can read these lines on the Homepage: Amongst the foremost contemporary American-Pakistani artists is Lubna Agha, whose images challenge the immovable qualities of traditional Islamic art and artifacts to provide a […]
Turko-Persian Spring of Islamic Art
Orhan Pamuk’s ‘My Name is Red’ is a refrabicated history (history told through the medium of novel) about the commissioning of caricaturists to illustrate classical works. The book narrates a time in the history of Turkey, namely the 16th century, which was kept apart by the avid focus at that time on painting. Sultan Murat […]
The Blend of Europe and Islam
Intercultural sharing between two communities is nowhere more explicit than in the cultural products of a region where two groups lived together for a long period of time. In art and architecture, we tend to fuse two streams of influences together as in Indo-Sarasan, Indo-Persian etc. In an era which was characterized by mutual rivalry […]
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