Mirror Sites:
CSUDH - Habermas - UWP

California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: October 10, 2001
Latest Update: October 10, 2001
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Christ the Almighty, detail from the Pala d'Oro,
the gold altarpiece in St. Mark's Basilica in Venice.
From the World's Great Treasures, edited by Gianni Guadalupi (Stewart, Tabori, and Chang: 336 pp. $60)

The Art of Venice

Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors: September 2001.
"Fair use" encouraged.

This essay is based on a book review in the Los Angeles Times on September 30, 2001: VENICE: LION CITY By Garry Wills. Simon and Schuster: 416 pp., $35. Sunday Book Review: The Religion of Empire. By John Julius Norwich. Sunday, September 30, 2001. backup

Periodically in the Current Issue I will try to put up online references to artworks that are simply part of our liberal arts education. Liberal arts, in this sense, means general knowledge that gives us a sense of the broad variety of the accomplishments of humans on this earth.

A part of your general education here, is to see how lovely this altar piece, and to understand at the same time that Islamic are does not permit the representation of the human figure in religiious art, but instead emphasizes pattern and repetition.

Some helpful sites on Islamic Art:

• The Origins of Arabic Calligraphy
• Islamic Art at the Metropolitan Museum in New York

  "To dispel a common misconception: Islam's supposed prohibition against figural art is confined to the religious sphere. As just one example, many representations of people are to be found in the department's outstanding assemblage of miniature paintings—strictly secular in nature—from the courts of Iran and Mughal India. Other strengths of the Metropolitan's collection include ceramics and textiles from all parts of the Islamic world; some of the finest Islamic carpets in existence from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and glass and metalwork from Egypt, Syria, and Mesopotamia."