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Late Medieval Period: Art
Fostered by the Mongol invasions of the
mid-thirteenth century, and inculcated with a new taste, especially for
Chinese designs and motifs, a new style of art was disseminated throughout
Islamic lands. This was a time of brilliant creativity, in which certain
preexisting techniques reached their greatest heights and fresh modes of
artistic expression were invented. This period is likewise marked by strong
dynastic patrons, often foreigners in their own lands, who sought to
legitimize their rule and emphasize their own acculturation through vigorous
sponsorship of the arts.
Perhaps the most profound impact of the
Mongol invasions on the arts of Iran was the new role of
manuscript illustration, which became a significant and
influential forum for courtly patronage. Beginning in the
early fourteenth century, the main focus of Ilkhanid patronage was historical works and
epic poems. The former were written expressly for the
dynasty, whose history and achievements they glorified,
while the latter represent the continuation of an
existing genre, exemplified by the Iranian national epic,
the Shahnama, which tells of the pre-Islamic kings
and heroes of Iran.
Early fourteenth-century
versions of the Shahnama were copied and
illustrated in Tabriz, the Ilkhanid capital, as well as
in Baghdad and in Shiraz, in southern Iran. A specific
style of painting is associated with each of these
centers for manuscript production, yet all early
fourteenth-century Shahnama illustrations share
certain basic features, many of which persist in
subsequent manuscript illustration. A page from an early
fourteenth-century Shahnama in the collection, Khusraw
Parviz Listening to Barbad the Concealed Musician (fig.
27), depicts the
story of the Sasanian ruler Khusraw Parviz and the
musician Barbad, who performed concealed in a tree in the
hope of attracting the shah’s patronage. Here
Khusraw Parviz is shown seated in a garden, surrounded by
entertainers and courtiers. Although the text of the Shahnama is set in a mythic past, both ruler and members of the
court are clothed in the style of the day, and their
facial features and hairstyles are those of the Mongols.
Similarly, in other paintings of the period,
representations of architecture, furnishings, or other
accoutrements reflect contemporary life. Yet these book
paintings should not be regarded as, nor were they
intended to be viewed as, realistic or necessarily
accurate depictions; they are, first and foremost, book
illustrations, meant to be understood and appreciated
within the context of the accompanying text. In fact,
they portray an idealized world, one in which the sky may
be gold, while the colors of the landscape, though
beautiful and harmonious, may include hues not found in
nature. Kings, heroes, and courtly figures likewise are
depicted as idealized types, and they reflect the
ethnicity of the ruling elite; thus the ancient Iranian
kings are recast as Mongol sovereigns.
This identification
between the contemporary ruler, often himself not a
Persian, and ancient Iranian kings was deliberate and
significant. It is generally accepted that the Ilkhanids
and their successors made use of the arts of the book to
further their own political agendas, using manuscript
illustration to justify and legitimize the ruling elite.
In initiating a tradition of Persian illustrated
manuscript production, the Ilkhanids also instituted a
tradition of politically motivated patronage of this
medium, which helped ensure its cultural and aesthetic
importance for some three hundred years.
The museum’s
collection also encompasses paintings from Persian
manuscripts of the fifteenth century, such as
illustrations from manuscripts of the Shahnama and
from the Khamsa (Quintet), a romantic epic by the
twelfth-century poet Nizami. The collection is especially
rich in paintings produced in western Iran, under Turkman
Aq Quyunlu patronage, but also contains manuscript
illustration from Herat, where the Timurid
court sponsored the creation of some of the finest
examples of the arts of the book, including historical as
well as literary works (e.g., fig.
28).
Even before the Mongol invasions, footed
cups and bowls in silver gilt, as well as gold, were produced in the greater Iranian world. Such luxury vessels seem to have had a special
place in the Mongol society, particularly among the branch of the dynasty
known as the Golden Horde, where they were viewed as articles of
prestige and power. A handsome silver gilt cup in LACMA's collection
(fig. 29) must have once rested on a
foot, to judge by the markings on its underside. Exceptionally, this
example may also have had a separately attached handle, which is
suggested by the break in the scrolling vegetal decoration beneath the
rim and the perforation directly below.
As a by-product of the
Mongol invasions and subsequent establishment of Ilkhanid
rule, new motifs of Chinese inspiration – including
lotuses and peonies, cloud bands, and dragons and
phoenixes – became part of the vocabulary of ornament.
Four star-and-cross tiles (fig.
30) demonstrate
this new taste, as well as a new technique (related to mina’i) known as lajvardina, whose
distinctive blue color evokes its namesake, lajvard, the
Persian word for lapis lazuli. Here, the deep blue tiles
were intended to form clusters alternating with the turquoise ones. Tiles
such as these served as architectural revetment and were
produced in molds, which accounts for the repetition and
duplication of motifs (compare the two cross tiles).
While the specific form and relief decoration were
dictated by the molds, which could be used over and over,
each tile was individually decorated. The deep blue or
turquoise was applied first, and then the gold, followed by the other
colors (e.g., red, black, and white),
was applied and fixed in a second firing.
The bold dragon and soaring phoenix that
each decorate the star tiles may have been inspired by similar motifs on
Chinese pottery and especially textiles, both of which were widely exported to
western Asia as luxury goods. These tiles were apparently
produced in the same molds as tiles excavated at Takht-i
Sulayman, the site of a ruined Mongol palace in
northwestern Iran, built in the 1270s. These four tiles
likewise may have been produced for the same building,
where they would have been part of a grander assemblage
of star-and-cross tiles surmounted by larger rectangular
relief tiles, decorated in the luster technique. Such a
spectacular ensemble of brilliantly colored tilework,
gleaming with gold and glittering with luster, would have
been worthy of a royal palace.
The collection includes
several other molded relief tiles in luster and lajvardina. One such
luster frieze tile, again associated with Takht-i Sulayman, displays a complicated figural scene.
Others are decorated with writing and must have formed
parts of epigraphic friezes that were used to decorate
both secular and religious structures. As the primary
building material in the medieval Iranian world was baked
brick, such tile revetments provided a colorful and
luxurious sheathing for the interior of the building,
while less fragile and costly tiles would have covered
the exterior of the most important buildings, including
palaces, mosques, and other religious edifices, such as
tombs.
One of the most important
examples of tilework in the collection is a luster panel
(fig. 31) dating to the early fourteenth century and
very likely a product of Kashan, the center of lusterware
production. This tile panel represents the upper portion
of what was undoubtedly a larger ensemble, possibly a mihrab. The panel’s molded relief
decoration includes an elegant Kufic inscription
that surrounds its borders. Its text, a passage from the Qur'an that refers to paradise, suggests
that this mihrab may have once graced a funerary
monument.
Glazed ceramic tile is one of the glories
of Islamic art. In the Iranian world, where building material was a
dun-colored baked brick, tile revetment provided a vivid means of
embellishing important monuments. There is a tremendous amount of
variety in Iranian tile decoration of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. Among the many diverse types the most complicated and time
consuming was so-called mosaic faience, as represented by a star-shaped
tile belonging to LACMA (fig. 32).
Here the elements of the floral design, which would likely have been
based on a paper drawing, were cut from different-colored glazed tiles
that were assembled like a mosaic and fixed with mortar. The star-shaped
tile thus formed would have been set in place on the exterior of the
building, where it would join other such tiles or panels as part of a
larger, more complicated program of design.
This tile belongs to the period of
Timurid rule (1370–1506). Many members of this dynasty, both male and
female, were prodigious builders who sponsored the construction of
religious institutions and foundations that were often built on an
enormous scale. Royal residences were also erected, although few have
survived. It is therefore most likely that this star-shaped tile once
formed part of the façade of a religious monument of the Timurid period,
when court-sponsored buildings were, as never before, clothed in an
elaborate decorative covering of brilliant glazed tile.
In addition to mosaic
tiles, another type of colorful ceramic revetment was produced
during this period in a technique known as cuerda seca (dry cord). Developed in Iran in the later fourteenth
century, cuerda seca was designed to produce
multicolored glazed tile decoration quickly, efficiently,
and cheaply. To prevent the different glazes from running
during the (single) firing process, the decorative motifs
were outlined with a greasy pigment that burned off in
the firing, leaving behind a dull, dark line.
The cuerda seca technique was introduced to western Anatolia in the early
fifteenth century, probably by a group of Iranian master
artists from Tabriz, whose work decorates an Ottoman royal mosque complex in Bursa. An
important example of cuerda seca tilework,
possibly from the same building complex, is in the
museum’s collection (fig.
33). This ceramic
revetment was molded in the form of muqarnas,
stalactite- or honeycomb-like elements used as decoration
in Islamic architecture. It is painted in a typical color
scheme of dark blue, turquoise, white, and yellow. Muqarnas elements such as this one were produced in modular units
and later set into place on building façades.
As in preceding periods of
Islamic art, calligraphy remained an important decorative
element, although in the late medieval period new cursive
scripts were introduced or popularized. Nastacliq,
a distinctive type of hanging script, was developed
during this period; it was used primarily for copying
Persian poetry, not only on paper but also in
inscriptions on a variety of objects. Persian texts of
this period, and of the succeeding late Islamic period,
were most often copied in this elegant, refined script.
Poetry written in Turkic languages was also rendered in
the Nastacliq script. The last great Timurid ruler, Sultan-Husayn Bayqara,
whose court at Herat in the late fifteenth century
was the preeminent Persian cultural center of its day, also wrote poetry in
his Turkic mother tongue; these poems were collected and copied in a
now-dispersed manuscript, several pages of which are in the museum’s
collection (figs. 34 and 35). Here the exquisite Nastacliq
calligraphy was not written with a pen but cut from
sheets of colored paper and meticulously pasted onto the
page, which has gold-flecked borders. This remarkable
type of calligraphic paper cutout, or decoupage, is known
as qitca.
By this period cursive scripts had
largely replaced Kufic for inscriptions in
both architectural decoration and decorative arts. The
collection includes a number of excellent examples of
beautiful calligraphy, one of which is an inscription on
a carved wood panel from a door (fig.
36). The
inscription on this panel consists of the signature of
its maker: "made by Husayn ibn (son of) Master
Ahmad, woodcarver of Sari" (in the Iranian province of Mazandaran, in the southern Caspian region), whose
family members – including his father, brother, and
uncle – evidently shared the same profession, to judge
by the signatures on several other examples of wood
carving. Written in Thulth, a monumental script with
large, rounded proportions, the seven words of the
inscription are deeply carved in three horizontal
registers and set against a scrolling leaf background;
the tall, vertical letters of the lowest register are
elongated so that they intersect with the letters of the
lines above.
As already indicated,
inscriptions in Islamic art served twin functions: to
inform and to decorate. Such is the case with a sumptuous
enameled and gilt glass oil lamp, produced in Mamluk
Syria or Egypt (fig. 37). Today, though the lamp has been removed
from its original setting, its boldly rhythmic Thulth
inscriptions, as well as its distinctive decoration, help
to reconstruct its context. The Arabic inscription on the
neck of the lamp quotes from a very famous verse in the Qur'an (xxiv.35), in which the light of God is likened to
the light from an oil lamp. This indicates that the lamp
was in fact produced for a religious setting. Only the
first few words of this section of the verse have been
transcribed ("God is the Light of the heavens and of
the earth"), but they are a sufficient a reminder of
the entire verse, of which the lamp itself is a tangible
visual re-creation.
The Mamluks were prodigious patrons of the
arts who took a special interest in building religious
foundations, which they supplied with all manner of
beautiful furnishings, including lamps such as this.
According to the inscriptions on the lower part of the
lamp, it was commissioned "By order of the most
noble authority, the Exalted, the Lordly, the Masterful,
holder of the sword, Shaykhu al-Nasiri," a former mamluk of the Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad. This Arabic inscription
supplies the name and titles of the person who
commissioned the lamp, but there is also a heraldic
device, known as a blazon, repeated on the upper and
lower sections of the lamp, which specifically pertains
to its patron. Taking the form of a circular medallion
bearing a red cup set between a red and a black bar, the
blazon refers to Shaykhu’s former status as a royal
cupbearer. He is known to have built a mosque and a khanqa (Sufi monastery) in Cairo in the mid-fourteenth
century, and this lamp was most likely made for one of
these structures.
Bold calligraphic bands of
Thulth became the main decorative element on Mamluk
metalwork in the fourteenth
century, as is also evident on brass candlestick in the museum's
collection once inlaid with silver and gold, which is circumscribed by a
prominent inscriptional band divided into two sections by two large
medallions bearing a smaller radial inscription (fig. 38). The
inscribed texts supply the name and titles of the Mamluk sultan al-Salih
'Imad al-Din Isma'il (r.1342-45). LAMCA's Islamic holdings are
especially rich in the arts of the Mamluk period, including a rare
wooden cupboard door inlaid with elaborately carved ivory and wood
geometric designs (fig. 39) and an
embroidered silk on linen textile fragment decorated with the symbol for
the zodiacal sign Sagittarius (fig. 40).
The collection, however, is particularly notable for its Mamluk
ceramics, whose color scheme and designs reached out beyond the confines
of the Mamluk empire.
As already indicated, the Mongol invasions of
western and eastern Asia in the early and mid-thirteenth century had an
immeasurable impact on contemporary societies. Although the Mamluks
halted the Mongol forces in 1260 at 'Ayn Jalut (Spring of Goliath) in
Palestine, the new Chinese-inspired artistic language that had developed
in Greater Iran as a consequence of Mongol rule easily penetrated Mamluk
art and culture. Direct contact through imported Chinese objects such as
textiles and blue-and-white porcelains in the fourteenth century also
helped to disseminate a fresh visual vocabulary to Mamluk artists. In addition to outright imitations produced in late fourteenth- and
fifteenth-century Syria, fourteenth-century Chinese blue-and-white
porcelains also stimulated Mamluk potters to produce tile revetment in
cobalt blue (and sometimes black, occasionally with turquoise or green
borders) on white ground. The decoration of these hexagonal tiles
typically combines Chinese-inspired vegatal motifs with an Islamic
preference for symmetry and geometric designs (fig. 41).
The great palatine city,
the Alhambra, is the most singular artistic achievement
of the Nasrid dynasty of Spain. The
Alhambra – the
name, a corruption of al-Hamra (the red), may
refer to the color of its walls – is situated high on
a hill overlooking the city of Granada. Conceived as both
a well-fortified palace and a royal city, the Alhambra was protected by heavy stone walls and towers on the
exterior, which conceal an elaborate succession of
intricately decorated rooms, courtyards, gardens, and
fountains on the interior.
The colorful and rich
interior of the Alhambra is reflected in the
museum’s collection by carved stucco architectural
elements (fig. 42), luster tile decoration, and textiles of the
period. One textile is decorated with complicated
patterns set against a bright red ground (fig. 43). This is an
example of the lampas technique, in which
multiple, independent designs could be woven in a single
cloth on a draw loom. The patterns, as preserved
in this fragment, are composed of a band of pomegranates,
alternating with a row containing gold-outlined shields
surmounted by crowns. Several larger pieces from the same
cloth, in other collections, reveal the complete set of
designs: The band of pomegranates is repeated, and the
row of shields is replaced by a row of crowned rampant
lions. The shields are inscribed: "Glory to our
Lord, the Sultan," a phrase that is found on a
number of other textiles of the Nasrid period. Similar
shields inscribed with the dynastic motto: "There is
no conqueror save God" are a more common decorative
feature of Nasrid art, as on the stucco architectural element (fig. 42).
Many Nasrid textiles, like
this one, survive only as fragments; others passed into
Christian hands, were converted into church vestments,
and were preserved in that form. Three large silk
curtains of the period have survived, and these attest to
one of the ways sumptuous fabrics were used. The Los
Angeles textile and other related pieces may have once
formed a similar wall hanging that added to the luxurious
ambiance of the Alhambra.
Image in top banner:
Tile, Greater Iran, fifteenth century;
fritware, glazed, cut to shape and assembled as mosaic; framed: 24 1/4 x 23 1/2 x 2 3/4 in. (61.6 x 59.69 x 6.99 cm);
The Madina Collection of Islamic Art, gift of Camilla Chandler Frost,
M.2002.1.19
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Late Islamic Period: History
