European Lessons of Islam Art: Far from a Rise to Nostalgic Reverie

AL-AHRAM WEEKLY
By David Tresilian

Top: Pascal Coste, 'Minarets of the Principal Mosques of Cairo,' 1818-1826; bottom: decoration of the ceiling of the Hall of the Ambassadors at the Alhmabra, Spain, from Owen Jones, 'Plans, Elevations, Sections and Details of the Alhambra,' 1842; Sketches from Jules Bourgoin, 'Elementary Grammar of Ornament' and 'Architectonic and Graphic Studies,' 1880s

EGYPT - Far from giving rise to nostalgic reverie, the Islamic arts could have been the foundation of an 'oriental renaissance' in 19th century Europe. Closing last month after a three-month stint at the Mus³©e des beaux-arts in the southern French city of Lyon, Le g³©nie de l'Orient, l'Europe moderne et les arts de l'Islam was an ambitious, wide-ranging exhibition that invited visitors to rethink much of what they might have been told about the relationship between Europe and the Islamic world in the 19th and early 20th centuries, including about the sometimes thorny topic of European orientalism. A final section of the exhibition looked at how the French painter Henri Matisse and the Swiss artist Paul Klee had been inspired in their search for a decorative form of art, one allying art with design or art with decoration and moving away from representation, by visits to Algeria and Morocco, in the case of Matisse, and Tunisia, in the case of Klee.  [link]