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Article: The Meditation of Ornament.
- Article from:
- Art in America
- Article date:
- May 1, 1993
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1993 Brant Publications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Twenty years ago, in The Formation of Islamic Art, Oleg Grabar wrote what remains to this day the best general theoretical study of early Islamic art in English. Steering a course between hard-core scholarship and user-friendly exposition, he sought to isolate the ways in which an art called "Islamic" might be defined, and to give a sense of the complex meanings that it had for its original viewers. Grabar's investigation was far-ranging, exploiting formal, religious and sociopolitical approaches to his subject. He offered revelations aplenty, but like any good teacher, when he didn't have answers he simply said so. In fact, by the end of the book, ambiguity of meaning ...
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