Art History -Chap 8- Images Parts 1+2

8.3 Cut-Away Drawing of the Dome of the Rock

• 687-91
  
• Oldest surviving Islamic sanctuary
  
• Stands on platform of the temple Mount and encloses a rock outcropping that is sacred to the Jews
  
  
  • Where Abraham prepared to sacrifice Isaac
    
• Built by Syrian artisans in the Byzantine tradition
  
• Central plan
  
• Crowned with a golden dome. Decorated with tiles outside and marble veneer and mosaic inside
  
• Frieze on inner wall contain inscriptions from the Koran with passages from other texts
  
• Walls are covered with pale marble whose veining creates abstract symmetrical patterns and columns with shafts of gray patterned marble and gilded capitals
  
• Mosaics thought to represent the gardens of Paradise
  

8-5 Frieze, Detail of Façade

• The frieze of Mshatta extended in a band 16 feet high across the base
  
• It was divided by a zigzag molding into triangular compartments
  
  
  • Each has contains a large rosette in high relief
    
• Compartments were filled with intricate carvings in low relief that included interlacing scrolls inhabited by birds and other animals
  

8.6 Prayer Hall, Great Mosque

• One of the earlier mosques
  
• Hypostyle hall
  
  
  • Approached through an open courtyard
    
  • Sahn an dinteriors are divided by rows of columns leading at the far end to the mihrab niche of a qibla wall
    

8-24 Behram Gur Visiting One of His Wives, an Indian Princess

• Illustrates the character from a lyrical favorite
  
• Round impassive faces of the amorous couple and their servants are a part of their idealization of the Timurid style painting
  
• There are no shadows and the colors are all bright although the scene takes place at night
  
• In the background there you see a garden in bloom through an opening in the wall
  
• Foreground contains a silver stream that has been tarnished back
  

8-26 Illuminated Tugra of Sultan Suleyman

• Istanbul, Turkey
  
• 1555-60
  
• Ink, paint, and gold on paper
  
• Oversized Tugra that required more than the usual skill to execute
  
• The color scheme of the floral interlace enclosed in the body was inspiried by Chinese blue-and-white ceramics
  

8.2 Dome of the Rock Jerusalem

• 687-91
  
• The gilt wooden beams in the outer ambulatory are not visable
  
• The carpets and ceiling are modern, but probably reflect the original patron's design
  
• See 8.3
  

8.7 Dome in front of the mihrab, Great Mosque
-965
-the melon-shaped, ribbed dome over one bays seems to float over a web of intersecting arches that rise from polylobed
-intersects arches rather than supporting piers
-lushly patterned mosaics w/ inscriptions, geometric motifs, & stylized vegetations clothe the domes in brilliant color and gold

Mosque Plans:
Hypostyle Halls:
-Great Mosque, Cordoba.
-sahn: the courtyard; interior is divided by rows of columns leading, at the far end, to the mihrab niche of a qibla wall, which is orients toward Mecca
Four -iwan Mosque:
-originally associated w/ madrasas (schools for advanced study)
-iwans: monumental barrel-vaulted halls w/ wide-open, arched entrances; faces each other across the sahn
-most were developed in Persia
Central-plan Mosque:
-Selimiye Cami, Edirne: mosque derived from from Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia - typical Ottoman Turkish architecture
-interior is dominated by a large doomed space uninterrupted by structural supports
-worship is directed toward a qibla wall and its mihrab opposite the entrance

8.8. Bowl with kufic border:
-from Samarkand, Uzbekistan; 9th-10th cent; Earthenware w/ slip, pigment, & lead glaze
-a bowl of medium quality, clear lead glaze was applied over a black inscription on a white slip-painted ground
-letters are elongated to fill the rim
-inscriptions translates: ”Knowledge, the beginning of it is bitter to taste, but the end is sweeter than honey”

8.10 Court of the Lions, Palace of the Lions, Alhambra, Granada, Spain
-completed. C. 1370-80
-a private retreat built by Muhammad the fifth (ruled 1362-91) in the late 14th cent.
-a rectangular courtyard named for a marble fountain surrounded by stone lions
-presently sanded
-originally a garden w/ aromatic shrubs, flowers, & small citrus trees between water channels that radiate from the central Lion Fountain
-2nd floor has miradors: projecting rooms w/ windows on 3 sides

8.12 Courtyard, Masjid-I Jami (Great Mosque), Isfahan, Persia (Iran)
-11th-18th cent. View from the northeast
-originally a hypostyle mosque; late 11th cent. Refurbished w/ 2 brick domes; 12th cent. W/ 4 iwans and a monumental gate flanked by paired minarets
-brick masonry on the interior of the iwans is unadorned; facades are sheathed in brilliant blue architectural tilework; typical Islamic feature for why this monument is famous

8.13 Tile mosaic mihrab, from the Madrasa Imami, Isfahan, Persia (Iran)
-c. 1354 (restored). Glazed and painted ceramic
-now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
-11 ft tall, made by cutting each piece of tile individually, including the pieces making up the letters on the curving surface of the niche
-color scheme (white against turquoise and cobalt blue w/ accents of dark yellow & green) is a typical kind of decoration