The Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory featured course:
ARTH 351b—Art and Architecture in the Islamic World
2019 Winter Term 2 (Tuesdays/Thursdays, 3:30–5:00), with Dr. Saygin Salgirli
ARTH 351b is a thematic study of visual arts, architecture, and objects (or minor and decorative arts) from the Islamic world. As a field, Islamic art history is almost as old as the discipline of art history itself. At the turn of the previous century, it was born out of a marriage between nineteenth-century formalism and oriental studies. However, it was also the child of European colonialism. Consequently, oriental studies, which began as the study of the languages, cultures and history of west Asia, quickly turned into an orientalism that formalistically classified and generalized very rich and diverse artistic practices into the universal category of “Islamic art.” The most immediate response to this, especially after former colonies became independent, was a particularistic-nationalist scholarship that perceived the boundaries of the modern nation state as a valid art historical category. The purpose of this course is to introduce art and architecture from the Islamic world without overarching generalizations and narrow particularisms. Therefore, although the course follows a clear chronology, each week’s topics are united under a common thematic umbrella that problematizes some of the basic assumptions about art and architecture in the Islamic world. Connectedly, instead of the traditional ending date, the 18th century, the course continues into the second half of the twentieth century.
ARTH 351b counts toward Faculty of Arts upper-level credit, either as general elective or toward the Art History or Visual Art major and minor.
No prerequisite.
Banner images: a cubist painting of the sixteenth-century architect Sinan, painted in 1952, by the Turkish painter Sabri Berkel; poster for the first dedicated Islamic art exhibition held in Munich in 1910; Henri Matisse, taken during his visit to the Munich exhibition.
