The medieval world
Art of the Islamic world
c. 650–1800
A shared visual language of calligraphy, geometry and ornament carried across three continents.
Overview
From the seventh century, the lands under Muslim rule developed related traditions in architecture, the arts of the book, ceramics, metalwork and textiles. Calligraphy held the highest status because it transmits the words of the Qur’an, and it appears on everything from manuscripts to buildings.
Religious settings generally avoid images of living beings, which encouraged extraordinary invention in geometric pattern and in the scrolling plant ornament known as arabesque. Court painting was a different matter: Persian, Ottoman and Mughal workshops produced richly detailed figurative miniatures.
What defines it
- Calligraphy treated as the foremost art
- Geometric pattern and arabesque covering whole surfaces
- Mosques, palaces and gardens planned around courtyards and domes
Works to know
- Dome of the Rock
- Great Mosque of Córdoba
- Alhambra
- Ardabil Carpet
- Taj Mahal