This is another example of naturalism mixed with calligraphic elements: the deer, the leaves, the flowers and vines, then the Words. It must be absolutely clear that the Words are the most important parts of the piece, not the other illustrative elements – they merely serve to underscore the rest of the point. The calligraphy is striking and handsome, and clearly meant to be the absolute focal point.
Tag: Islamic art
Sunday
This is pretty for the sake of being pretty. There’s not an ulterior motive for it, nor a practical usage for it. This is just something that you’d put out because you were cash rich and you wanted to flaunt it.
Saturday
I do love some old glassware, and this is no exception. The color marbling/frosting is particularly interesting and I think has to do with sudden temperature differentiation in the cooling process – but what do I know? I’m not a glassmaker.
Friday
This is not, in any way shape or form, meant to be anything other than sexy and a bit of flash. It is style and sass. It is ‘I’m better than you’ distilled to a fine point and hammered home.
Thursday
I don’t know what that decoration is meant to be, but to me, it resembles a hawk or a falcon. Regardless, it is beautiful in both its simplicity and its ornateness.
Wednesday
This is a more traditional calligraphy-based decoration. Note the lettering that looks like swans and/or camels in its elongated forms.
Tuesday
It’s so rare to have Islamic art with people in it because the Quran talks about how the word is sacred above all else and art should be of the word and so on and so forth, hence the highly stylized ritualistic Islamic art we have today.
Monday
Tiles pretty. Pretty tiles. Look at the pretty tiles.
Friday
Y’all, it’s a dagger. A curve-bladed dagger, typical Mughal style, very simple, very pretty, nice and stabby. We do love our stabbity objects over here.
Wednesday
Down on the first floor, hiding at the bottom of a stairwell, rarely noticed for the last 30 years or so has been this beautiful set of tilework. I say unnoticed because how many people actually look at what’s at the bottom of the stairwells? I do. I look everywhere at everything. I look in every nook and corner, around every doorway, up every staircase.
I’m in awe that these tiles have survived in this condition for this long; the colors are just as vivid now as the day they were fired. The scrollwork is just as ornate as the day it was painted. I love everything about them. They are one of my favorite hidden gems in the SLAM museum collection.