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Stylistic Tendencies at the Time of Shah ᶜabbas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Richard Ettinghausen*
Affiliation:
a Professor at the Institute of Fine Arts , New York University b Consultative Curator in the Islamic Department , Metropolitan Museum

Extract

Among the many creative periods in the artistic history of Isfahan, two are outstanding: that of the Seljuqs in the eleventh and twelfth centuries and that of Shāh ᶜAbbās I (1587-1629). But, while the Seljuq period is primarily represented by one monument, the Masjid-i Jamīᶜ, that of Shāh ᶜAbbās is mirrored not only by many important buildings of great aesthetic appeal, but by the decorative arts, paintings, and drawings as well. Indeed, it presents itself in such a characteristic manner that one can readily compare it with any of the great artistic periods of Western art, such as the Gothic or Baroque ages, where architecture, sculpture, painting and the decorative arts are all unmistakably stamped with the specific imprint of the time.

Type
Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1974

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References

Notes

1. About these Timurid connections, see Ernst J. Grube, “The Seventeenth Century Miniatures of the ‘Language of the Birds,'” Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art XXV (May 1967), pp. 339-46. (In the author's opinion figs. 11, 13 and 15 are, however, later than seventeenth century); Welch, Anthony, Shāh ᶜAbbās and the Arts of Isfahan (New York: 1973), pp. 19Google Scholar and 65, no. 14.

2. The quotations are from Welch, p. 21.

3. The quotation is from Gordon Bailey Washburn's “Foreword” to Welch, p. 7.

4. Besides the article quoted in note 1, the same Bulletin contains an article by Marie G. Lukens, “The Fifteenth Century Miniatures,” pp. 317-38.

5. Sarre, Friedrich and Trenkwald, Hermann, Old Oriental Carpets, tr. Kendrick, A.F. (Vienna-Leipzig: 1926), vol. I, pl. 30Google Scholar.

6. Sarre, Friedrich and Mittwoch, Eugen, Zeichnungen von Riza Abbasi (Munich: 1914), pls. 32Google Scholar, 13, 1 and 19a.

7. Ettinghausen, Richard, “The Dance with Zoomorphic Masks and other Forms of Entertainment Seen in Islamic Art,” Arabic and Islamic Studies in Honor of Hamilton A.R. Gibb, ed. Makdisi, George (Leiden: 1965), pp. 211-24Google Scholar.

8. Welch, p. 82, no. 59 with bibliography; see particularly Arnold, T.W., “The Riza Abbasi Manuscript in the Victoria and Albert Museum,” Burlington Magazine 38 (1921), pp. 5967Google Scholar.

9. Stchoukine, Ivan, Les Peintures des Manuscrits de Shah ᶜAbbās Ier à la Fin des Ṣafavīs (Paris: 1964), pl. LXXIGoogle Scholar.

10. Wellesz, Emmy, “An Early al-Ṣūfī Manuscript in the Bodleian Library,” Ars Orientalis 3 (1959)Google Scholar, figs. 10, 11, 49, 55, 61 and 70.

11. Ernst J. Grube, The Classical Style in Islamic Painting (n.p.: 1968), no. 52 and others not illustrated.

12. Stchoukine, pls. LIV and LVI.