Amazon.com Review
The Koranic proscription against human and animal imagery turned centuries of Islamic artists and architects inward, to create unmatched examples of geometric and decorative art. This lavish, authoritative book, with gorgeous photographs by Roland and Sabrina Michaud, provides an introduction and overview to, as the subtitle disarmingly puts it, "Eight Centuries of the Tile-Maker's Art." The often-anonymous Islamic artists whose work is featured here, however, were far more than tile-makers: they were astonishing draughtsmen, dazzling colorists, hypnotically inventive creators of endlessly spiraling design. The Michauds' photographs are complemented by text from the scholar Michael Barry. The book is lent increased interest by the fact that some of the landmarks featured are now off-limits to many Westerners, especially Americans.
From Publishers Weekly
A pristine 12th-century minaret hidden in Afghanistan's mountains for centuries and discovered only in 1957; a sky-blue mausoleum in Samarkand, built for Timur's niece in 1371; spectacular tiles from Istanbul's Topkapi Palace; intricately decorated medieval Iranian shrines erected under Islamized Mongol rulers?these are some of the exotic sites explored by the Michauds in their leisurely photo-essay stretching from Central Asia to Pakistan. Their odyssey, splendidly illustrated with 158 color photos, is organized around an unusual framework: their eloquent, free-form translation of Azerbaijani poet Nezami of Ganjeh's Persian verse romance The Brides of the Seven Climes, written in 1197, a Scheherazade-like saga that purports to unlock the sacred cosmic symbolism of the seven colors used by medieval Persian ceramists on their walls and domes. An informative essay by Barry, a Parisian scholar specializing in medieval Islamic civilization, encompasses glazed brickwork architecture ranging from 4th-century B.C. Macedonian mosaics to Moghul forts and palaces in India.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
