Customer Reviews

Golden Age of Persian Art

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is clearly written and profusely illustrated with many wonderful examples of Persian art at it's best. Ms. Canby does an amazing job of providing a good historical , as well as art historical, foundation for the reader. In these difficult times, it's very worthwhile to be reminded that Islam has produced much sublime beauty. As an artist, I value this book both as a historical document and as an inspiration for my studio work.

A needed and delightful text for both scholars and students of Safavid Persian art, Canby has produced a lavishly illustrated and finely wrought masterpiece in this book. Ample footnotes and index add to significant quotations and excerpts. Useful for university classes - indeed a course text in my own - THE GOLDEN AGE OF PERSIAN ART is comprehensive in covering not just Persian miniature painting but also ceramics, books and manuscripts, calligraphy, tiles, architecture, metalworking and textiles. One of the most helpful glossaries in the literature on Persian art explains appropriate terms like `qitabkhaneh' (a literary and art workshop or atelier) and `ghazal' (a verse trope often used for love poems). One of my favorite passages includes Canby's note about the artist Sadiqi Beg's brilliant use of waqwaq design on a robe of the Queen of Sheba Balqis on p. 106. Canby's economically-worded yet extensive glossary notes waqwaq is a "human - and animal headed arabesque scroll" and here the hybridized image is in Sadiqi Beg's painted textile, wondrously subtle art within art.