From the Harem, Osman Hamdi Bey, 1880 [Erol Kerim Aksoy collection]
Ottoman Painting: Reflections of Western Art
from the
Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic
by Wendy M. K. Shawr [1]
Publisher : I.B.Tauris (March 15, 2011)
Hardcover : 288 pages
ISBN-10 : 1848852886
ISBN-13 : 978-1848852884
The late Ottoman Empire witnessed widespread and dramatic
reform, which was vividly reflected in its visual culture. However, while other
political and social developments in this period have received much attention,
the interaction between Ottoman and Western artists and artistic practices is
less widely understood. Ottoman Painting explores fully this complex and
fascinating relationship for the first time, using vivid examples and drawing
many intriguing and original connections.
Wendy Shaw demonstrates how during the 19th century -- the
very era when rapidly proliferating modernist artistic movements in the West
were giving up traditional styles, techniques and functions of art -- artists
in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey were harnessing these discarded traditions as
a novel and modern means of communication. And far from being simply slow in
embracing modernity, Ottoman art tells the story of a different kind of
avant-garde, representing a cultural revolution. Ottoman Painting is an
important corrective to a Western-dominated view of the art history of an era
and a stimulating addition to our understanding of the cultural life of the
late Ottoman Empire.
What is 'Islamic' Art?: Between Religion and Perception
Publisher : Cambridge University Press (December 5,
2019)
Language : English
Hardcover : 382 pages
ISBN-10 : 1108474659
ISBN-13 : 978-1108474658
Revealing what is 'Islamic' in Islamic art, Shaw explores
the perception of arts, including painting, music, and geometry through the
discursive sphere of historical Islam including the Qur'an, Hadith, Sufism,
ancient philosophy, and poetry. Emphasis on the experience of reception over
the context of production enables a new approach, not only to Islam and its
arts, but also as a decolonizing model for global approaches to art history.
Shaw combines a concise introduction to Islamic intellectual history with a
critique of the modern, secular, and European premises of disciplinary art
history. Her meticulous interpretations of intertextual themes span antique
philosophies, core religious and theological texts, and prominent prose and
poetry in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Urdu that circulated across regions of
Islamic hegemony from the eleventh century to the colonial and post-colonial
contexts of the modern Middle East.
Review
'This book is exactly what art history needs when it
attempts to think about Islamic art. Instead of asking what properties make an
image Islamic, this book asks, what is an image in Islam? When art history
begins to understand its secularism, concepts like art, image, vision, matter,
and history necessarily change. Shaw gives us a different perceptual culture,
one that begins from Islamic discourses, and gradually becomes visible as art
and history. It is the first book of its kind, and I hope there will be many
more.' James Elkins, School of the Art Institute, Chicago
'By questioning the primacy of the art object and placing
the experience of perception at center stage, Shaw challenges a number of
paradigms within the field of Art History. In this master stroke of
scholarship, she pries open the affective and aesthetic landscapes of
pre-modern Islamic cultures, untethered from any single-point perspective and
re-enchanted by the soaring poesis of her prose.' Christiane Gruber, University
of Michigan
'A radical rethinking of modern art history and the secular
terms of Islamic art history. Stepping out of the perspectival frame, this
marvelous book unpacks not only a vibrant Islamic perceptual culture thriving
on sensation and mimesis but also imagines the possibility of studying art from
a de-colonial angle. An amazing tour de force revealing an alternate approach
to art!' Birgit Meyer, Universiteit Utrecht
'A question that may seem simple, but behind that door is
the history of everything - the shape of thought, the logic of imagination, the
cradle of taste. Creative, sophisticated, fluent and spirited, Shaw paints in
the rich landscape that gives meaning to self and other.' Victoria Rowe
Holbrook, Istanbul Bilgi University
[1] Wendy M K Shaw is a professor of the Art History of
Islamic Cultures at the Free University, Berlin. She is the author of
Possessors and Possessed: Museums, Archaeology, and the Visualization of
History in the Late Ottoman Empire (University of California Press, 2003) and
Ottoman Painting: Reflections of Western Art from the Ottoman Empire to the
Turkish Republic (I.B. Tauris, 2012). Her articles explore the intersection
between modernity, colonialism, postcoloniality, philosophy and art in the
Islamic world through museums, art historiography, archaeology, religion, film,
photography and contemporary artistic production. They feature a regional
emphasis on the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey, and comparative
perspectives with other regions of the global south and those with legacies of
Islamic hegemony.
She works on the art and thought of Turkey and the
postcolonial Middle East, particularly in its relationship with historical remembrance.
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