Art Exhibitions of 2015

The end of each calendar year brings out all the art critics to write about the best art exhibitions they experienced that year. Because we live in the NYC area, with an incredibly rich cultural scene, we are fortunate that there is so much to see. Here, for instance, is the link to Holland Cotter and Roberta Smith's article on the best in the art world in 2015, which is quite comprehensive if thematic in its arrangement. Conscious of geography and its limitations to lists, I like that Hyperallergic does separate reviews for NYC and other parts of the world in their annual rankings, to create a more level playing field, it would seem. As for me, since I don't have the luxury, liberty, or time to see every exhibition in NYC, let alone in the world, I can only base my list on what I have been fortunate to see. This year I did see a lot, including a number of new museums and collections for the first time, listed at the end of this post. Below is my annual summary of what I felt were the best shows I saw this year (here is last year's post). And, for the record, I should note that I have not yet seen Picasso Sculpture at MOMA, partly because going to see an exhibition there is a total nightmare. Fortunately, it closes in about a month from now, so I still have time.

I still am surprised that no one I have encountered, read, or spoken to, ever saw what I consider to have been one of the best shows of 2015. Entitled Body and Soul: Munich Rococo from Asam to Günther, this exhibition (installation view above) brought together over 160 sculptures in polychrome wood, terracotta, silver, and stucco, as well as drawings and paintings and prints by a number of largely unknown sculptors based in Bavaria during the 1700s (hence the eponymous Asam brothers, Cosmas Damian and Egid Quirin Asam, working early in the century, to Ignaz Günther at the end). This exhibition was installed at the Kunsthalle in Munich, a space for rotating special exhibitions. The installations of many of these works was simply stunning. The exhibition was ecclesiastic in its focus (Bavaria, unlike the rest of Germany, historically remained Catholic), so one saw mostly angels and saints in the show. Normally installed in churches, cathedrals, and chapels, these works typically are part of elaborate, intricate architectural settings and interior spaces. Removing them and putting them on exhibition in this way, however, gave the viewer the opportunity to appreciate them as individualized works of art, with an emphasis on the sculptural quality of these figures, i.e. their materiality and craftsmanship, and occasionally their hyperrealistic theatricality. At the same time, removing them from their usually-ornate environments, the viewer appreciated how their contorted, exaggerated forms make them seem proto-surreal and modern. The image you see above was just one of the many rooms in which the stunning display of larger-than-life figures impressed viewers. It is unfortunate that this exhibition did not get more attention internationally. Despite the national focus, I suspect it is because it was largely religious in nature, and religion does not usually do so well with audiences today.

Two other sculpture shows that are high on my list derive from the ancient and contemporary art worlds. In Florence I saw at the Palazzo Strozzi the exhibition Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World, which showcased intricate and often naturalistic works of art crafted from the period between Alexander the Great's death in 323 BCE and the foundation of the Roman Empire in 31 BCE (image left: Victorious Athlete, 300-100 BCE, bronze and copper, Getty). Drawn from collections worldwide, many of the objects were presented with interesting didactic panels that provided a broad context from how the bronze figures were made to their socio-economic and political uses. The exhibition was co-organized with The J. Paul Getty Center, and is currently still on show at present at the National Gallery in Washington, DC until March.

In contrast to this ancient survey, the exhibition of works by Doris Salcedo at the Guggenheim here in NYC was absolutely worth visiting. I was first introduced to Salcedo a few years ago when she did the infamous "crack" Shibboleth in the floor of the Tate Modern Turbine Hall, which had some interest but seemed to rely too much on the conceptual for my taste. This year, however, the exhibition of a selection of her work clearly revealed her focus on her heritage growing up in Colombia during turbulent years in its history. Her works address violence, racism, and misogyny, but they also fool the mind with their use of unusual materials and the juxtaposition of hard and soft media that confuses the mind. The installation view seen here shows a series of historical wooden pieces of furniture that have had concrete poured into them. Making them useless as furniture, they take on a new function as archaeological monoliths that question ideas about the domestic sphere. An installation piece that changes with each space, these incredibly heavy objects challenge one's ideas about what constitutes space itself, then, and in the spirit of sculpture-as-objects the viewer is forced to engage with them in a way that blocks your entry and exit. Their monumentality and gravitas were provocative and almost tangible. The two criticisms I had about this exhibition, however, was that it was spread out through the galleries at the Guggenheim in a way that I found disconcerting and fractured. Secondly, it was absurd of the designers not to make the wall texts and panels bilingual. In this day and age in America, curators and designers have a responsibility to create Spanish texts in addition to English texts whenever they exhibit a Latino/a artist. (Brooklyn Museum successfully did this with their Francisco Oller exhibition, but alas I was not as thrilled about that show overall.)

Shirin Neshat: Facing History was on exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC, when AA and I visited there in June. Like with Salcedo, I had seen a few of Neshat's photographs and one film in the past, and was intrigued by her work, but this retrospective was amazing. I would go so far as to say it is #2 on my list of the best exhibitions I saw this year. Born in Iran in 1957, Neshat left in 1975, and her art work since then has addressed the turbulent politics of Islam and Iran's relationship with the West. She has staged historical recreations of important political events, uses multiple cameras to personify the divided worlds of men and women, and hand-manipulates exquisite black-and-white and color photographs with Persian texts, all in to draw attention to the crises we face in our ongoing political battles between Iran and the West to this day. Neshat is one of those artists whose work continues to have more relevance with each passing year as jihadists in the Near East continue to strike fear in the hearts of everyone--Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, everyone--in the world. The image you see here is a manipulated photograph from her 1993 series I Am Its Secret (Women of Allah) [Photo: Plauto © Shirin Neshat].

On my list, I would next say that #3 is Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist. On display at the new Whitney Museum of American Art, this show was an absolute delight. African-American of mixed-race heritage, Motley (1891-1981) was trained academically, but was influenced by modernist trends after World War I. His portraits of blacks, whites, and mixed-race people emphasize the wide array of complexions and social standings that exist in our world. He celebrated the advancements and opportunities that jazz gave to blacks in America and Paris, and clearly loved music and dance. The painting you see here, Tongues (Holy Rollers), 1929, is an exploration of the spirituality endemic in some black communities, but you also can see in the movement of their bodies that this is a dance, a paean to life-as-spirituality, and how jazz is influencing even how one can think about religion. This exhibition taught me about an American artist whose work I had little exposure to before now, and showed me beautiful paintings that made me go through the exhibition more than once to absorb all the colors, forms, compositions, and sensations. It made me appreciate yet again how incredibly fascinating the 1920s were in American art, a statement I have been making ever since I saw the incredible show Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties at Brooklyn Museum in 2011. To wrap up this section, I should add that the Whitney Museum also deservedly gets kudos for the new Renzo Piano building in the Meatpacking District. They have done an amazing job of integrating public and private space, outdoor and indoor space, in one building, and in so doing have unexpectedly also created a charming new community in a neighborhood that culturally was on the rise but now has taken off.

To wrap up this post here are a few other honorable mentions from exhibitions I saw this year:

• I was delighted I had the opportunity to see Flaming June by Frederic, Lord Leighton, at The Frick (image right). This painting is one of those great pictures from posters and postcards that first inspired people to look anew at Victorian painting (even I had a poster of it!). Seeing this picture in person reminded me that Leighton is painterly and has a lush brushstroke, even though images make him seem to be a slick, linear classicist. Viewers love this painting for its sensual depiction of the young woman in her diaphanous draperies, and it does not disappoint in person. I also liked how the Frick installed the picture by two of their ladies by J. A. M. Whistler, cleverly demonstrating how the two were part of the Aesthetic Movement, which emphasized beauty in art without subject or moral meaning, but painted so differently.
• At the Metropolitan Museum of Art this year, one of their big successes has been Kongo: Power and Majesty, which I saw not too long ago. It is indeed an excellent installation and does a good job of not only showcasing beautiful examples of African art in numerous media, but also engaging well with issues such as slavery and post-colonialism with the Portuguese trade of this area from the 1600s to the 1900s. 
• Another great Met Museum exhibition was Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends, not because it was a wonderful installation, but because everyone just loves gazing at and revelling in John Singer Sargent's bravura of a brushstroke. 
• In contrast, Navigating the West: George Caleb Bingham and the River was not necessarily a beautiful exhibition, but it was very interesting learning more about this 19th-century painter based in Missouri drawn from scientific analysis of his paintings and looking more closely at his contemporary sources. 

I will close this post by noting that I was fortunate to visit a few museums for the first time this year. These were, in no particular order: the Nelson-Atkins in Kansas City; the Barnes Foundation and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia; the Galleria Nazionale dell'Arte Moderna in Rome (amazing unknown 19th-century art); the Guildhall Art Gallery in London (Victorian pictures galore!); and Dia:Beacon in upstate New York (whole new appreciation for Sol LeWitt's wall murals). I also had a great research trip to Boston and visited for the first time the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the reconstituted Harvard Art Museums, and revisited for the first time in almost twenty years the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Amazing art, collections, installations, and exhibitions in these places...2015 was quite a great year.

Talks in Rome, New York, Oxford, and Pittsburgh

I've just returned from an amazing two-week vacation in Italia, as I mentioned would be happening during my birthday post. I may write about some of the details of that trip if I have time over the next few weeks. For now, however, I wanted to blog briefly about a series of talks that already have, and will take place, over the next few months. I am fortunate to have been invited to give talks in three of these locations, and the fourth was only just announced to me as an acceptance of my conference proposal. It's definitely going to be a busy couple of months!

One of the things I did not mention about my trip to Italia was that I was invited to speak at the Keats-Shelley House in Rome on April 23rd. This fascinating institution on the Piazza di Spagna is set up as a memorial with a library and archive of materials associated with the British Romantic poets John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron. I gave an hour-long talk there about the life and works of John Gibson, the sculptor about whom I have spoken and published in the past, entitled "From Mars and Cupid to the Tinted Venus: The Sculptor John Gibson and His Studio in Rome." As far as we know, Gibson never met any of these poets in person, but he did know well the painter Joseph Severn, who traveled to Rome with Keats and was with him when he died (and later buried beside him). Like Gibson he remained in Rome for a number of years as an expatriate artist.

Next week, on May 7th at 6:30pm, I am giving a talk at the Dahesh Museum of Art gallery/shop here in NYC, as part of their monthly Salon Thursdays. My talk is entitled "Jewish Artists in Victorian London: Abraham, Rebecca, and Simeon Solomon" and will encompass aspects of the life and times of the Solomons, as well as highlight important paintings from their careers. The image you see above is by the eldest brother Abraham, Second Class, The Parting, 1854, which will be among the works discussed both as a genre painting and part of the contemporaneous interest in that new mass transit invention, the railroad. The talk is free and open to the public. (You can read more about my posts on the Solomons by clicking here.)

Then, in early June, I am giving an invited talk at a conference to be held at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford University. The conference is about object-centered learning and the use of museum collections in education. (I confess that I cannot find anything online about this, but it is a conference open to registrants, and is scheduled for June 5 and 6.) My paper is yet to be titled, but will relate to the work we have been doing at Columbia using art works for curricular integration, and comes as a nice follow-up to the object-centered symposium we hosted in February this year. I've discovered also that an exhibition of British drawings will be on while I'm there, so I look forward to seeing that.

And, finally, in October, I will be part of a panel session on globalism in 19th-century art at the annual Southeastern College Art Conference (SECAC), to be held in Pittsburgh (their first conference north of the Mason-Dixon Line). bklynbiblio readers may recall that I gave a talk about Gibson and polychrome sculpture at last year's SECAC in Sarasota. This year, however, my paper will be based on a rather new project: the visual culture of Anglo-Persian relations around the time of the Napoleonic Wars. One of the more distinct images associated with this, then, will be the image you see here. This is a portrait of Mirza Abul Hassan Khan (1776-1845), painted 1809-10 by William Beechey. The mirza was the Persian ambassador from the Qajar Shah of Iran to the court of King George III at the time this was painted. The painting is in the collection of the British Library. Here is the brief abstract I submitted for my paper, which will take place in about 6 months from now.

James Justinian Morier and Mirza Abul Hasan Khan:

Anglo-Persian Diplomacy in British Art, ca. 1810-20

by Roberto C. Ferrari, Columbia University

Columbia University’s art collection includes a heretofore unknown 1818 portrait attributed to George Henry Harlow of the writer and diplomat James Justinian Morier (1782-1849) dressed in Persian clothing. The painting seems to falls in line with contemporaneous Orientalist portraits showing Western sitters wearing Eastern garb. However, an exploration into Morier’s life and times shows that this label disregards the painting’s association with the global politics of its day. Indeed, this painting is an important part of the visual culture of Anglo-Persian diplomacy during the Napoleonic wars. Morier is best known today for his Romantic novel The Adventures of Hajji Baba (1824), but he also wrote and illustrated two travelogues (published 1812 and 1818) about his years in Persia as part of a British diplomatic mission.

Equally important in the context of Anglo-Persian diplomacy is a consideration of Mirza Abul Hasan Khan (1776-1845), who in 1809-10 traveled with Morier to England as the Persian ambassador with orders from the Qajar shah to finalize the treaty between the two nations. An exotic arrival in Georgian London, the mirza had his portrait painted by Thomas Lawrence and William Beechey, and he kept his own travel journal known as the Hayratnamah, or Book of Wonders. The mirza’s experiences in London can be seen as a counterpoint to Morier’s life in Persia, an opportunity to understand—and misunderstand—each other’s cultures in the pursuit of diplomacy. This paper will consider these portraits and travelogues as documentation of Anglo-Persian diplomacy in British art during the Napoleonic wars.

Random Musings 9

This morning I received an email from Sladmore Gallery announcing the current exhibition at their Jermyn Street location in London, and I so wish I could go see this in person before it closes next month. The picture you see here should give you a clue. Yes, they’re doing The Dog Show. Now, in the world of art history, animals have never been taken too seriously. Think “dog” and “art” and the first think that comes to mind is the ridiculous picture of dogs playing poker. To some extent, Victorians like Edwin Landseer perhaps did make animals in art seem trite with paintings like Trial by Jury where dogs hold court, but Landseer also was enormously famous for Monarch of the Glen, a beautiful picture of a stag in the highlands which came to be seen as an icon of national pride. Dogs, however, have been faithful companions for centuries and frequently appear in art, such as in just some of these important paintings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Anthony van Dyke and Jean-Honoré Fragonard. The exhibition at Sladmore Gallery focuses on 19th- and 20th-century paintings and sculptures, which is another reason to see the show since combining these two media in one show is so infrequently done. And if you’re wondering why I chose this particular image of a West Highland Terrier by the British artist Lilian Cheviot, it is an homage to the memory of my own adorable little Westie named Duchess, who died in 2003.

Speaking of the Met, the Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia opened to the public on Tuesday. I had an opportunity to preview them the week beforehand, and they are simply magnificent. The image you see here is of the restored Damascus Room, which is but one of the many galleries that have been reinstalled after an 8-year renovation. The room showcasing a number of exquisite carpets is just stunning, but my personal favorite sections showcase objects from the Ottoman Empire and India. Considering that cultural relations between the U.S. and various Islamic nations and peoples have been precarious to say the least, these galleries can only help in educating about the fascinating culture of Islam and its exquisite works of art from so many parts of its world for over a millennium. You can read from The New York Times a full review and description of the galleries by Holland Carter, who describes them as being “beyond fabulous,” which they are.

In case you haven’t heard the news, the world population is now at over 7 billion. That number alone is staggering to say the least, but the rate of growth is even more disturbing. At the current rate of population growth, it is estimated that by the year 2080 we will have 10 billion people on the planet. Whatever happened to those futuristic modules of living in underwater colonies or outer space? Someone needs to start working fast to accommodate our ever-increasing population. But did you ever wonder what number you were at your birth? Turns out, I was person number 3,678,956,784. I’m also the 77,803,200,647th person who’s ever lived on the planet. Go to the BBC population calculator app to find out your numbers and learn more about population growth around the world. You may be surprised by what you find out.

Finally, whenever I report on the British royal family, I always get scolded by a number of my friends for being a royal follower. Whatever...it’s part of history, and I love it. (Besides, I recently made a lovely visit to Hampton Court Palace, and without the royal family, that place probably wouldn't exist right now.) Parliament made history this week by reforming the rules for the royal family’s line of succession. It has always been that daughters are passed over in favor of sons, even when they are born first. Henry VIII had two daughters before he got his son, who became Edward VI. Only because Edward died young and childless did Mary and Elizabeth subsequently become rulers. This change means that if the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (Will & Kate) have a daughter, she will automatically be the heir to the throne regardless if a son is born afterwards. Interestingly, this law now automatically changes the current line of succession. It had been Charles, William, Harry, Andrew (Charles’s brother) and his daughters Beatrice and Eugenia, then brother Edward, then Anne and her children. But with this change, Princess Anne now has moved to 4th and her son and daughter are higher in the line of succession now too. The Guardian had an interesting report on all this, and they pointed out a few important historical turns that could have made British history very different if this law had been changes ages ago. One of the more interesting possibilities from modern history relates to Queen Victoria’s first-born, Princess Vicky (1840-1901), whom you see here. She was married to the Crown Prince of Prussia and eventually became Empress of Germany when that country was united. Her son eventually rose to power and took over the imperial throne as Emperor Wilhelm II, ruling Germany during World War I. But technically speaking Vicky would still have been heir to the throne of England, so upon the death of her mother she would have been named Queen Victoria II but remained Dowager Empress of Germany. When she died 7 months after her mother, her son Kaiser Wilhelm II then would have become King of England and thus united England and Germany into one imperial nation. Can you imagine if that had happened? World War I may never have happened...or we all would be speaking German right now.

From Buddha to Dickens

I had to do some research at my school's library today, so I thought I would use part of the day also to catch up on a few special exhibitions here in the City. I made my way first to the Asia Society on Park Ave. & 70th St. to see The Buddhist Heritage of Pakistan: Art of Gandhara, which I had included on my list of must-see shows for the fall. The show was fantastic, and I am so glad I went. I have a weakness for Asian art like Chinese landscape paintings, Japanese prints, Chinese/Islamic calligraphy, and Buddhist sculpture. In many ways it is so different from Western art that it allows us the opportunity to look at it with fresh eyes, unadulterated by our expectations of what we assume the artist did or what we know about the school in which he/she lived because we're used to certain things. But I am actually schooled a bit in Asian art, having taken a number of classes years ago and having taught courses on Asian art, literature, and religions in my past, but I would never consider myself a specialist. So I love to see shows like this and simply appreciate the subtle beauty of these works exactly for what they are. Take the Buddha you see here, for instance, from the Lahore Museum in Pakistan. He dates from the 2nd-3rd century and stands just under 5 feet high. The figure shows the Buddha as a teacher, raising his (missing) hand in the mudra of peace, and he wears the ushnisha (knot of knowledge) on his head and the urna (third eye of spiritual awakening) in the middle of his forehead. But what makes this figure so spectacular is the way his cloak ripples down his body, carved in a way that you can sense it is translucent and you can see the contours of his body beneath it. This "classical"-style Buddha is Gandharan, and what makes the art of this period and region so amazing is that it encapsulates a global culture from two millennia ago. Located near the silk route and conquered by the Persians and Greeks, the art of this area reflects an amalgamation of cultures coming together. From the Western perspective, this Buddha looks very Greek. If it were in white marble, one might thing an ancient Greek or Roman carved it. The entire exhibition brought together works from the Lahore Museum, a feat unto itself considering the political instability in which the U.S. and Pakistan find themselves today. The Asia Society also had an exhibition of the watercolors and paintings of Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel prize-winning writer from India, celebrating his 150th birthday. Much of his visual art resembles the work of modernists popular at the time. Paul Klee and Amadeo Modigliani come to mind. It wasn't really my taste, but it was worth seeing. They also had a single-room exhibition of a kinetic sculpture by the contemporary Korean artist U-Ram Choe. The sculpture looked like the skeletal remains of a manatee with sea oats growing out of it, their tips moving in the air like grabbing peacock feathers. There is a long conceptual narrative to the piece, but you can tell I wasn't into it, although the clockwork mechanics of it were interesting.

I ventured over to the Morgan Library today as well, which had four exhibitions that interested me. I started with the show on Islamic manuscript paintings from their permanent collection, some of which were vibrant and delightful. I then moved downstairs to see David, Delacroix, and Revolutionary France: Drawings from the Louvre. Encompassing French drawings from about 1780 to 1860, the emphasis here was on the Neoclassicists and Romantics. Many of the drawings were quite good, but without contextualization of paintings for which some were studies, it is more challenging for the general viewer person to appreciate what it is you are looking at.

I love the art of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, so it was a pleasure to see works of his not only in the exhibition from the Louvre, but also in a separate small exhibition with drawings from the Morgan's permanent collection. Ingres was a skilled draftsman, and he bridged the gap in many ways between the classical and romantic. The image you see here by him is his Odalisque and Slave, 1839, and relates directly to a painting of the same subject. Depicting a fantasy Orientalist scene that exploits the beauty of the female nude and the exoticism of the Middle East, the subject is Romantic; however, the crisp line and detailed precision and balance in the picture allow it to fall neatly into the Neoclassical style. I'm essentializing all this just to keep it simple, but normally I don't like pigeon-holing artists into categories like this because it creates an unnecessary hierarchy of excellence. Regardless, what strikes me most about this work is that when I saw it, I was convinced it was an engraving. In fact, it is a drawing in pencil, chalk, and wash, which is a testament to Ingres's incredible skills as an artist.

I also had to stop in the exhibition celebrating Charles Dickens's 200th birthday as well. There were letters, manuscripts, books, photographs, caricatures, and other related items all on display in cases and hanging on the wall. Now, I confess I've never been a big fan of Dickens. I've read Hard Times and Nicholas Nickleby, and of course read more than once A Christmas Carol, but to me Dickens seemed to focus too much on sensationalizing the poor in a way that objectified them. Then again, he was a journalist and his books did get people to start thinking about social programs for the underprivileged, so it's understandable why he was and is so popular.

Now if you've read this entire post (for which you get my applause!), you may be wondering what the heck the image at the top of this post has to do with Buddha or Dickens or anything in-between. In truth, nothing. But it does relate to the end of my day in the City, for as I was heading toward the subway, I was drawn into Banana Republic like a moth to a flame. As I walked in a shop girl said, "40% off everything!", flailing a coupon in my face. "40%," said I, "off everything?" "Yes, everything!" she exclaimed. Needless to say, I couldn't resist adding a few items for my work wardrobe for the fall/winter season...but don't you just LOVE what I bought?! By the way, they're saying we may get snow flurries tomorrow...I'm pretty sure I'm ready.

Review: Islamic Calligraphy

I am fascinated by the calligraphy of non-Roman alphabets. I'm a fan of Gothic scripts and other Roman-style fonts too, but I find them much more interesting when you can no longer make out what the words say (like in a medieval manuscript). That's why I've always been drawn to "foreign" calligraphy, such as the Kanji script used in China, Japan, and Korea. When I gaze at the bamboo scroll of Chinese characters hanging on the living room wall right near my desk, I am captivated by the free-flowing sensibility of line and brushstroke. Each character becomes an aesthetic object unto itself. They're not humanoid figures, but abstract ideas. I have no idea what each character means. I don't need to know, and I don't want to know. The scroll hangs on my wall as a grouping of ideas that collectively could meaning anything or nothing. They are words. And yet, whatever their meaning, they stand first and foremost for me as aesthetic ideas.

Because of this interest of mine, I had been looking forward to going to the Asia Society to see an exhibition on Islamic calligraphy (visit their website for a virtual exhibition, http://www.asiasociety.org/islamiccalligraphy). I went on Saturday. It was actually two small shows grouped together: Traces of the Calligrapher: Islamic Calligraphy in Practice, ca. 1600-1900 and Writing the Word of God: Calligraphy and the Qur'an. The majority of objects on display were from the Ottoman Empire (Turkey), the Safavid and Qajar Empires (Iran), and the Mughal Empire (India). The first part focused on the world of the Islamic calligrapher. There were examples of writing implements and related accessories (e.g. reed pens, paper-cutting scissors, etc.), as well as writing guides that students would have used as part of their training. To be a calligrapher in the Arabic world was of great importance. Because traditional Muslim culture does not permit the public display of the human form in art, calligraphy became the ubiquitous type of art in the Islamic world. I hadn't realized that there are so many different types of Arabic calligraphic styles though, and that the skill in both writing and reading these calligraphies required much training and learning. As a result, calligraphers often advertised their abilities with certificates that demonstrated their expertise. The image you see here, for instance, actually has three different types of Arabic scripts on it, all of them written by one Muhammad Sadiq Kamali Efendi, who was active in the 1820s in the Ottoman Empire (the image is from the Asia Society website).

The second part of the show focused on how different scripts were used to write the Qur'an over time. On display were rare leaves of parchment dating back to the 8th century. One of the reasons why calligraphy became so important in the Arabic world was because it was believed that with the writing of the Qur'an the person was evoking the word of Allah. Thus, the calligrapher performed a spiritual act by setting down on parchment or paper the word of God. It seems not coincidental then that so many of these early Arabic scripts were difficult to read, and that only those who knew the verses by heart could read the texts themselves. This reinforced the spiritual connection to the calligraphy itself.

All in all, the exhibition was fascinating. It was a little silly to see so many carved reed pens in display cases dramatically lit, as if they were priceless objects of gold, but that is the traditional way of museum exhibitions, and it did emphasize their importance for the calligrapher. The Iranian pen cases made of papier-mâché were exquisite. Of course the examples of Arabic scripts throughout the exhibition were the highlight of the show. It was fascinating to see the skill, craftsmanship, and beauty of these works. In the end, however, what interested me most was how a calligrapher's skill and talent superseded the ability to read the texts themselves. The art of writing was based on aesthetics, and it was beauty that came to represent an idea. What a concept...using beautiful handwriting to convey ideas about spirituality and life itself. It makes me want to stop typing and write with a fountain pen in my journal.