Islamic Art and the Museum

Symmetry and Islamic Art

Islamic art is unique because its form and function permeate both distance and time. Since the birth of Islam, Muslim artists around the world have created pieces of art that share an uncanny resemblance to pieces created by other Muslim artists through common themes, appearances, and applications. These similarities include calligraphic elements, exaggerated depictions of plants and animals, a...

Digital Islamic Art: The use of digital technologies in contemporary Islamic art in the UK

In this paper, I provide a brief introduction to my artistic practice combining the use of digital technologies with traditional methods for producing Islamic art. Looking at further examples of Islamic artworks by artists in the UK I describe how in some cases, the artworks are digital in themselves, using digital technologies as a medium and in other cases, the digital plays a part in the cre...

Introducing Books/ Iranian Art: Collecting Iranian Art Pieces for Victoria and Albert Museum, Mohammad Javad Ahmadinia

New Accessions of Islamic Art

During the past year the Museum's collection of Islamic art has been greatly enriched by several important purchases, gifts, and bequests. The bequest of twenty ceramics and two Persian rugs by Horace Havemeyer has already been discussed in a separate Bulletin article (May I957). One of the most notable additions was the Cora Timken Burnett Bequest of Persian miniatures and other art objects, w...

From the museum: the art of thinking.

From the outset, our challenge is to elevate your ‘‘thinking about thinking’’ and to creatively engage with new thought as it both defined and was derivative of the human mind during key periods of European artistic and scientific development commencing with Renaissance awakenings, through the passions of the Romantic age, Enlightenment’s revelations and the powers of Symbolism, culminating in ...