Resources & Publications

The Textile Museum Journal, Vol. 44

Table of Contents

Toward a Grammar of Textiles: A Reconsideration of Medieval Textile Aesthetics and the Impact of Modern Collecting, Arielle Winnik

Nomad Textile Bags from Central Asia in the 19th and 20th Centuries: Geographic Distribution, Decoration, Semantics, Irina Bogoslovskaya

Through the Renaissance Frame: Carpets and the Beginnings of ‘Islamic Art’ in Nineteenth-Century Vienna and Berlin, Denise-Marie Teece

Pope Innocent VIII's Mamluk Carpets from Cairo in Context: Their Manufacture and Acquisition, Rosamond E. Mack

Rethinking Mamluk Carpet Origins, Gerald Pollio

 
Book Reviews
Tentage at the Calico Museum and its Patterns, by Peter Alford Andrews and Mugul Andrews, Mattiebelle Gittinger
Imprints of Culture, by Eiluned Edwards, Sarah Fee
Pattern and Loom, by John Becker, Ruth Barnes
Textiles of the Banjara, by Charllotte Kwon and Tim McLaughlin, Cristin McKnight Sethi

Virginie Prevost, Les mosquées ibadites du djebel Nafūsa: Architecture, histoire et religions du nord-ouest de la Libye

Les mosquées ibadites du djebel Nafūsa: Architecture, histoire et religions du nord-ouest de la Libye [The Ibadites Mosques of the Djebel Nafūsa: Architecture, history and religion of North West Libya (VIII-XIII centuries)]

The mosques of the Djebel Nafūsa, little known and under threat, personify the continuity of traditions and faith of the Ibadites, who have retained their grip over the centuries on this rugged landscape, despite their many trials and tribulations. This book is the result of a mission carried out in 2010 with the photographer Axel Derriks and examines twenty or so mosques, bringing to light their architectural features and linking them to medieval Ibadite texts.

   French text with Arabic summary

   Photography: Axel Derriks

   Maps, plans and drawings: Mathieu Favresse

   210 x 297 mm; 254 pages; over 170 full-colour photographs, illustrations and plans

   ISBN 978-1-900971-41-6

   Publication date: 2016

Prices: Paperback: Members of the Society for Libyan Studies: £22.50; Non-members: £30.00 from Oxbow Books; eBook: £tbc from Oxbow.

ed. Finbarr B. Flood and Gülru Necipoğlu, A Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture,

The two-volume Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture bridges the gap between monograph and survey text by providing a new level of access and interpretation to Islamic art. The more than 50 newly commissioned essays revisit canonical topics, and include original approaches and scholarship on neglected aspects of the field.

• This two-volume Companion showcases more than 50  specially commissioned essays and an introduction that survey Islamic art and architecture in all its traditional grandeur
• Essays are organized according to a new chronological-geographical paradigm that remaps the unprecedented expansion of the field and reflects the nuances of major artistic and political developments during the 1400-year span
• The Companion represents recent developments in the field, and encourages future horizons by commissioning innovative essays that provide fresh perspectives on canonical subjects, such as early Islamic art, sacred spaces, palaces, urbanism, ornament, arts of the book, and the portable arts while introducing others that have been previously neglected, including unexplored geographies and periods, transregional connectivities, talismans and magic, consumption and networks of portability, museums and collecting, and contemporary art worlds; the essays entail strong comparative and historiographic dimensions 
• The volumes are accompanied by a map, and each subsection is preceded by a brief outline of the main cultural and historical developments during the period in question
• The volumes include periods and regions typically excluded from survey books including modern and contemporary art-architecture; China, Indonesia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Sicily, the New World (Americas)

ISBN: 978-1-119-06866-2
1448 pages
August 2017, Wiley-Blackwell

Adila Laïdi-Hanieh, Fahrelnissa Zeid: Painter of Inner Worlds​

Adila Laïdi-Hanieh, Fahrelnissa Zeid: Painter of Inner Worlds

The story of Fahrelnissa Zeid’s (1901–91) life is truly like no other. A Turkish noblewoman by birth and Iraqi princess by marriage, she was the first female artist to have a solo exhibition at London’s prestigious Institute of Contemporary Arts. Friend and relative of kings, queens, and statesmen, and busy wife of an ambassador, she was also a leading figure of Turkish modernism in the 1940s and a prominent member of the avant-garde in postwar Paris, praised by fellow artists and critics alike. Despite her privileged background, she fought personal tragedy, psychological turmoil, and social and artistic prejudice to chart a unique and innovative path all of her own. She became celebrated in her lifetime for her monumental and dynamic abstract compositions that engulf the viewer in fields of colour, light, and energetic movement, as well as for her later expressionistic portraits of family and close friends. These works reflect her conception of art as a ceaseless forward quest, driven by a spiritual need to produce painterly renditions of cosmic journeys and inner psychic universes.

Coinciding with a retrospective exhibition at Tate Modern, this book is written by a former student of the artist and based on unprecedented access to her private papers and personal archive. It provides a revisionist and definitive account of both her extraordinary life and the constant innovation and reinvention that characterized her career right up until her final decades working and teaching in Jordan. It foregrounds the importance of her extensive knowledge of European culture and her shifting mental state on her artistic vision, and challenges orientalist interpretations of her art. In doing so, it redefines Fahrelnissa Zeid for the contemporary reader as one of the most important modernists of the twentieth century.

Mohammad Gharipour, ed. Synagogues of the Islamic World: Architecture, Design and Identity

This illustrated volume examines the spaces created by and for Jews in areas under the political or religious control of Muslims. Covering regions as diverse as Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and Spain, it asks how the architecture of synagogues responded to contextual issues and traditions, and how these contexts influenced the design and evolution of synagogues. As well as revealing how synagogues reflect the culture of the Jewish minority at macro and micro scales, from the city to the interior, the book also considers patterns of the development of synagogues in urban contexts and in connection with urban elements and monuments. 

Publisher:  Edinburgh University Press
ISBN13: 978-1474411714
Number of pages: 448, number of color illustrations: 200

For more information, please see the webpage.

Elizabeth Fraser, Mediterranean Encounters: Artists Between Europe and the Ottoman Empire, 1774-1839

Focusing on travel images and cross-cultural exchange, Mediterranean Encounters examines interactions between the Ottoman Empire and Europe from 1774 to 1839, highlighting mutual dependence and reciprocity.

A 30% discount is available using code EAF17 at http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-07320-0.html

Herat Through Time: The Collections of the Herat Museum and Archive

edited by U. Franke and M. Müller-Wiener, with 21 contributions by various authors

This volume, published as vol. 3 of the Ancient Herat series, has 732 pages with 1950 colour images and 250 line drawings and maps.

The volumes are not available through commercial distributors; the webpage www.ancient-herat.de provides detailed information on the content and an option to order the books. The contact email is info@ancient-herat.de. The two forthcoming volumes will be placed on that page too.

International Journal of Islamic Architecture (Vol. 6, Issue 2, July 2017)

“Imagining Localities of Antiquity in Islamic Societies"

Crafts of Syria

An announcement of Marcus Milwright's new online teaching and research resource:  http://craftsofsyria.uvic.ca

 The site is devoted to the crafts of Syria and records evidence for traditional modes of manufacturing across the country. I have been developing this site over the last year with the assistance of students in the Department of Art History and Visual Studies (University of Victoria).
 
The Crafts of Syria website is organized according to the cities, towns, and other settlements of modern Syria. You will find primary written sources, secondary historical studies, ethnographic and archaeological research, travellers’ accounts, and photographs that provide evidence for craft activities conducted in these locations from the seventh century to the present. Searches can also be made via a map or by craft type.
 
The site is in its early stages of development, and the coverage (geographical, historical, and the range of crafts) is still uneven. My team will continue to add new entries in the coming years. We also plan to extend the geographical scope of this study to encompass other regions of the Middle East.
 
If you have additional material relating to crafts activities across Syria, I would be delighted to receive it. Please send this information, as well as comments about the site to mmilwrig@uvic.ca
 

Marcus Milwright, Islamic Arts and Crafts: An Anthology

Islamic Arts and Crafts: An Anthology by Marcus Milwright (Edinburgh UP, 2017) is a collection of written sources (dating from the seventh to the twentieth centuries) that explores numerous aspects of the crafts of the Middle East from the processing of raw materials to the manufacture of finished artefacts.