Renovated Galleries of Islamic Art Celebrate Beauty and Diversity.

On October 24, following a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the project’s completion, curators offered a preview of the 1,800-square-meter galleries that house the collection of the museum’s Department of Islamic Art.
Formally known as the Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and Later South Asia, the 15 interconnected spaces highlight more than 12,000 works of art — including pottery, glass objects, textiles, calligraphy, sculpture, metalwork and architectural elements — that trace the course of Islamic civilization over 13 centuries and across territory from Spain in the West to India in the East.
According to curator Maryam Ekhtiar, the galleries’ geographic orientation “was devised to take a regional approach, but the idea is to give visitors options — you can also approach the artwork chronologically.”
From the 7th through the 19th centuries, Islamic art was shaped by a cross-fertilization of artistic ideas, beginning with pre-Islamic traditions from ancient Rome, Byzantium and Persia that were adapted by the architects of buildings such as the Great Mosque of Damascus. That mosque is evoked at the museum by the arched, columned entrance to a gallery devoted to art from Syria, Yemen, Egypt and Iraq.
Artists were frequently inspired by art from other cultures. Medieval Syrian potters embraced Chinese blue-and-white earthenware designs by adopting a similar palette for their own ceramic pieces. Iranian pottery of the same period also featured a blue-and-white color scheme, as did the pottery of Turkey’s Iznik region, a production center for ceramics in the 1500s.
Glass vessels from Egypt and Syria “indicate that signature styles were starting to develop,” Ekhtiar said. An Egyptian bottle from the late 13th century, featuring a Chinese-inspired phoenix design on its neck, is an example of the enameling and gilding techniques that glassworkers devised for royal patrons. In medieval Iraq, potters developed ceramics known as lusterware, characterized by a luminous finish.
Creativity flourished in a variety of media, as the galleries’ holdings illustrate. Standout pieces include two monumental sculptures carved in Iran during the 11th or 12th century; they probably adorned a palace compound. Medieval incense burners were engraved with Arabic inscriptions in kufic script, and artisans from India’s Mughal period produced ceremonial daggers and jeweled objects.


 

The collection also includes illuminated manuscripts, as well as intricate textiles from Iran, India and Pakistan.
Among the collection’s highlights are classical carpets, including the renowned Emperor’s Carpet, a 16th-centur
y Persian masterpiece that was presented to Hapsburg Emperor Leopold I by Peter the Great of Russia. “The Emperor’s Carpet was one of a pair,” Ekhtiar said. “The other carpet is in Vienna, but they’re almost identical.”
Other highlights include the richly ornamented Damascus Room, built in 1707, one of the finest examples of a wealthy Syrian home during the Ottoman period, and an elaborate 14th-century mihrab, or prayer niche, from the Iranian city of Isfahan.
Master craftsmen from Fez, Morocco, built on-site a Maghrebi/Andalusian-style courtyard evoking the 14th century. Complete with hand-cut tiles and a fountain, the elegant courtyard “was a raw space when they started [construction], and they transformed it,” Ekhtiar said. “They surpassed our expectations.” The courtyard is defined by the intricate geometric patterns associated with Islamic art. An interactive touch screen tells visitors about the stylistic traits of Moroccan courtyard design.
Even visitors unfamiliar with Islamic history will appreciate the beauty and sophistication of the works on display, Ekhtiar said. “We wanted to celebrate diversity. Islamic art is not monolithic, but Islam is the thread that ties it together.”
For more information, see the Metropolitan Museum of Art website.
See also “The Met Reveals the Splendors of Islamic Art.”


IPP Digital