Interwoven histories
Financial Times; Jul 15, 2006
By Peter Aspden
The chic streets that surround the Victoria and Albert Museum in South
Kensington are not short of expensive shops selling exotic carpets and
fabrics from the east; but here, in the museum’s new Jameel Gallery
of Islamic Art, is one that makes all those others look like tawdry
camel rugs. The Ardabil carpet, the world’s oldest dated carpet from
1539, is the proud centrepiece of the gallery: 50 sq m of subtle hues
and exquisite craftsmanship, encased in a brilliant new display that
finally puts it where it belongs – on the floor.
A specially created case, made with non-reflective glass and hung
low from the ceiling by numerous strands, deliberately echoing the
pendulous effect of lanterns in a mosque, gives the Iranian carpet
its best-ever public showcase; it has always previously hung on the
wall. Little is known for certain about its origins, says Tim Stanley,
the museum’s senior Middle East curator, but it was admired by no less
a figure than William Morris, who considered it "the finest eastern
carpet which I have seen… of singular perfection, defensible on
all points, logically and consistently beautiful". Morris urged the
museum to buy it from a London dealer for the hefty sum of £2,000 in
1893. Today it is priceless. It will be lit for visitors for just 10
minutes every half hour, to preserve its original colours.
The Jameel Gallery, designed by the architects Softroom, opens
this week with a sharp sense of purpose. Not only does it aim to
improve public understanding of a culture that many westerners have
misunderstood, prejudged or underrated; it also focuses on the fact
that Islam was always more than a religion. "What we have gathered
here is the art of the Islamic empire and its successor states,"
says Stanley. "And not everyone was a Muslim in that empire. People
get the wrong idea – for example they think there are no images in
Islamic art, which is not true."
The sections of the gallery that are dedicated to secular items show
an art that reflects a highly sophisticated court milieu, where
"un-Islamic" activities such as astrology, dancing to music and
drinking wine are lavishly portrayed. "It is imagined that the Middle
East was in some way cut off from the rest of the world, whereas it
was the very centre of so many cultural exchanges," says Stanley. At
the same time, it was the religious devotion inspired by Islam that
enabled the region to resist cosmopolitan influences and keep its
distinctive identity.
Many of the fine ceramics on display, for example, were the result of
trade links with China, where white stoneware was being produced and
became widely admired; from the Middle East it spread to the west,
where it became more fashionable still.
Christianity also played a role in the Islamic empire. The Isfahan
Cope, a semi-circular church cloak woven in Isfahan, Iran, with the
dense silk pile used for carpets, features striking images of the
Annunciation and the Crucifixion. It was produced in the early 17th
century for an Armenian church. It is a remarkably worked garment,
its Christian components harmonising with typically Iranian scrollwork
motifs.
Cross-fertilisation of this kind was common: a Syrian or Egyptian
brass chalice from the 13th/14th century is in the Islamic Mamluk
style, yet is inscribed in Arabic honouring the Christian patron who
commissioned it, illustrating how local Christians were accommodated
in the prevailing political system.
These are perhaps fanciful footnotes to the gallery’s main business,
although one may think that such fruitful examples of multicultural
synergy are never to be overlooked in the present climate of mutual
suspicion. The principal constituents of Islamic art – that are
common to most of the work here – are: an emphasis on calligraphy,
particularly in the depiction of quotations from the Koran; a rigorous
geometric style, employing a flat picture plane; the use of plant-based
motifs, a style that was to become known as "arabesque" in Europe;
and the occasional appearance of images and extracts from poetry.
The contentious issue of figural decoration is nowhere better seen than
in the 14th century tiles that come from a monumental tomb found in
Natanz in Iran. An inscription in cobalt blue is backed by scrollwork,
which is inhabited by small birds. Some time before the 19th century,
when the tiles were removed from the building, the head of each bird
was carefully chipped off, so that religious sensibilities would no
longer be affronted.
The Ardabil carpet is thought to have religious connections precisely
because of its lack of figurative imagery, in contrast to the so-called
Chelsea carpet (after the London dealer from whom it was bought),
another 16th-century masterpiece, adorned with animals either grazing
or in combat, and clearly for secular use.
But the Jameel Gallery, dedicated to the memory of his parents by
Mohammed Jameel, president and chief executive of the Abdul Latif
Jameel Group, does not only tell the story of Islamic art; it is
also an insight into British cultural history. Interest in Islamic
ornament was a by-product of the Great Exhibition of 1851, which had
given prominence to British industrial design, then widely thought
to be lacking in aesthetic qualities. The architect and critic Owen
Jones, who sketched details and plans at Granada’s Alhambra in the
1830s, made explicit the link between improving industrial design
and the superb craftsmanship displayed in Islamic ornamental art in
his influential book The Grammar of Ornament.
Outstanding individual pieces, such as ornate trays and basins, were
acquired by the new Museum of Ornamental Art (the V&A’s precursor)
for their superb detailing – yet there was also something akin
to industrial espionage taking place, according to Stanley.
"Manufacturers needed information on the material culture of
non-western countries, so that they could match their production to
the needs of overseas markets."
The acquisition of Arab and Persian art, as it was then classified,
continued apace, from a series of international exhibitions held
in London and Paris. Iran even participated officially in the
Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1867. (At this time, the Turks
were not considered capable of producing anything worthwhile – one
theory ingeniously believed Iznik pottery to be a product of Persian
craftsmen who had been marooned on the island of Rhodes.)
The gallery of Islamic art as such was opened in 1950, when, says
Stanley, "the knowledge we have today and the desire to explain to
the public was simply not there". The Jameel Gallery takes as its
twin mantras the new imperatives of museum culture – "education
and engagement", with interactive displays linking the gallery’s
400 objects to the fine poetry tradition of the region, and proper
discussion of social context. Above all, however, Stanley says the
gallery should be a great experience for British Muslims, "to visit
and come away with a real appreciation of the beauty of these works,
and a sense of pride".
The Jameel Gallery of Islamic Art opens at the Victoria and Albert
Museum, London, SW7, this Thursday.
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