The origins of the visual arts In the islamic world
Аннотация
This article examines the origin of visual arts in the ecumene of the Islamic world which, despite the absence of an outright prohibition of depiction of living beings in the Quran, is considered to be “something that is cursed by Islam.” The centuries-old practice of Islamic art shows that its non-pictorial, yet reflective character, inherited from the ancient cults of the Western Semites, does not imply an absolute denial of an art form inspired by reality and its representation through visual images. Over the course of 1,500 years of its development, the art in the Islamic world was influenced by former and parallel artistic cultures, including those that existed long before Islam on the territory of its homeland – the Arabian Peninsula, washed by the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf.The urban population of pre-Islamic southern and northern Arabia, the Sabaean and Nabataean kingdoms came into contact with the ancient artistic cultures of Central Asia and Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Palestine,Syria, Egypt, Ethiopia. The Arabians actively mastered the forms and concepts of the Hellenistic, Iranian-Parthian, Ethiopian, and Egyptian visual arts and partially the ancient cultures of Central Asia. It was facilitated by the Hellenization of the East by the Greco-Macedonians; the development of overland and sea routes of the Silk Road in the end of the 2nd century BC; and the subsequent settlement of Arab tribes in various areas of Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Syria; and their contacts with the local population of Late Antiquity and Early Medieval culture of the Eastern Mediterranean region and the Iraqi-Iranian world of the Sasanian era.The touch of the rich folklore heritage of Muslim Arabs with the literate civilizations of Western and Central Asia, and unwanted monumental sculpture and painting in the Islamized environment determined the elite nature of the visual arts in the medieval Islamic world and contributed to the development of subject miniatures as book illustrations or decoration for expensive goods.