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Library | Item Barcode | Call Number | Material Type | Item Category 1 | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... | 30000004810564 | N6260 G66 2001 | Open Access Book | Book | Searching... |
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Summary
Summary
Five essays explore aspects of aesthetics in classical Islamic thought in light of contemporary theories, offering new perspectives on Islamic art and architecture with examples ranging from the Qur'an and the Alhambra to the works of present day artists and philosophers. Tracing the roots of Islamic aesthetics back to the works of the philosophers of the Middle Ages such as Avicenna and Averroes, Valerie Gonzalez finds that aesthetic theory in Islam must be seen within the much wider context of parallel thinking on theology, ethics, physics, and metaphysics. She balances her analysis of this philosophy (moral, logical, and scientific) of beauty with the equally important analysis of the perceptual experience of beauty.
Author Notes
Valerie Gonzalez has been a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and is currently a Research Associate at the School of Architecture, Marseille.
Reviews 1
Choice Review
This book is a fascinating, mind-teasing, and frustrating, at times brilliant, sometimes convoluted, but always stimulating investigation of Islamic aesthetics. Gonzalez (l'Ecole d'Architecture de Marseille-Luminy, France) begins her foray into the realm of aesthetics with examinations and explications offered by medieval Muslim philosophers on aesthetics, not only of the meaning of beauty but also of its wider context in theology, ethics, physics, and metaphysics. She considers the Muslim idea that the beautiful and the experience of beauty is an intellectual exercise that generated art within that particular context. The most invigorating aspect of her investigation is the related question of representation in Islamic "abstract" art in which she includes the signifying system of inscriptions. She illustrates her interpretations of representation in specific or concrete works of art; her most successful and lucid interpretations of the visual language are of the architectural decorations of the several rooms in the Alhambra Palace in Spain. On the whole, this study successfully follows previous investigations on Islamic aesthetics by Oleg Grabar (The Alhambra, CH, Mar'79; and The Mediation of Ornament, 1992, not mentioned by Gonzalez) and G. Necipoglu (The Topkapi Scroll: Geometry and Ornament in Islamic Architecture, CH, Jan'97). An inspiring addition to the study of Islamic aesthetics. General readers; upper-division undergraduates through faculty. U. U. Bates CUNY Hunter College
