1 comments about Islamic Art in Context (Perpectives) (Trade Version).

1. This book has great plates and is a great picture book. It also approaches the subject of Islamic art in a way unique compared to most introductory western art books. Rather then go chronologically, it breaks the subject up by themes. This works great for this material. This book is very readable, but sometimes a little simplistic. It's a great introduction to the subject.

No comments about Christian Symbols, Ancient and Modern: A Handbook for Students.

No comments about Performing the Visual: The Practice of Buddhist Wall Painting in China and Central Asia, 618-960.

3 comments about Eastern Christian Worlds.

1. When this book was given to me to review, the accompanying adjective was "stunning," echoing the same adjective used by Clément in his preface (7). It is indeed a stunning book; this folio size volume contains ninety-six full color plates gathered into groups and divided by country of origin. There are also 188 black and white plates interspersed throughout the text. Not a few of this plates find their first public appearance in this book. The reproduction of these plates is of top quality and the colors, particularly of the Armenian and the Ethiopic entries, are brilliant. From the point of view of art reproduction, the publishers are to be highly commended for a truly beautiful--yea, stunning--book.

   This volume represents a companion volume to Liturgical Press's previously issued translation of Mahmoud Zibawi, The Icon: Its Meaning and History (1993), equally "stunning" in its artwork. One can see clearly from the mere titles of these two book that the volume under review here covers a much broader territory. In this volume, Zibawi opens with a general introduction to the characteristics and history of the Eastern Mediterranean, the region in which each of these Eastern Christian Communities is found (9-20). In a second chapter, he goes on to a brief discussion of the history of the "Exchanges and Intercommunion" between the Eastern Christian communities (21-30). In Chapter 3, he compares the two primary artistic methods of the Eastern Churces, "Iconic and Aniconic," and the preferences, manifestations, and developments within each of these communities (31-46). In chapters 4 through 7, Zibawi covers the history and artistic achievement of four primary Eastern Christian Communities that he discusses: the Syrians (47-100), the Armenians (101-54), the Egyptians [= Copts] (155-208), and the Ethiopians (209-62). A very brief epilogue, followed by a Selected Bibliography, Glossary and Credits, then concludes the book (263-72).

   While this volume follows its predecessor in its stellar artistic reproductions, it unfortunately also follows that volume in its lack of primary scholarship and lack of overall organization. The chapters each wander back and forth from ecclesiastical and/or political history to art history to descriptions of certain works of art back to ecclesiastical history. The artistic descriptions cover nearly every type of art and architecture found in these communities: churches, carvings, icons, frescoes, manuscript illuminations, miniatures, and some sacred vessels. However, these descriptions only rarely correspond to the plates in the volume, and in the few cases that the black and white plates are described, they are almost never referenced. The descriptions are also rather superficial, describing merely the scene depicted, only rarely venturing into an evaluation of its importance or its interpretation within the community's faith and worship. References to influences of other cultures, Christian or pagan, are also sporadic and then only rarely supported. Historical introductions, aided by the translator's penchant for keeping throughout the book the present tense of the original French instead of the more idiomatic English past tense, read like "grand sweeping descriptions." But not only can one only recount so much detail of a millennium or more in the space of three or four pages, Zibawi manifests little first hand knowledge of the areas with which he is dealing. A quick glance at the bibliography at the end of each chapter reveals Zibawi's complete dependence on secondary French works. Even where he includes a quotation from a primary source it is culled from a secondary work or, less often, from a French translation of the work. While it might be defensible for an art historian to be dependent on secondary sources for the historical and political background, the sketchiness and superficiality of the artistic descriptions also leaves the reader wondering just how conversant Zibawi is with art history as well.

   While these general comments may sound overly harsh, they are meant only to indicate that the scholar will find nothing new and little of use in this volume. The general reader, however, will find a book whose artwork is so impressive that it alone just might serve as the hook to lure her/him into the field of Eastern Christianity, if not as a scholar then as a more educated amateur. While there are certainly gaps in the bibliography, there is nonetheless enough for the interested reader to find a reasonable entry into the literature.

   In general, the volume is well edited, though there remains a number of errors in the Selected Bibliography at the end of the volume, e.g., Pelikan, Yaroslav for Pelikan, Jaroslav; Apren, Mar for Aprem, Mar; Isaac of Antioch for Isaac of Nineveh, John of Edessa for John of Ephesus, Narsallah for Nasrallah, and Garso'ian for Garsoïan, to cite but a few. For some reason, throughout chapter 5, on the Armenians, one consistently finds the name of the great historian of Siwnik' as Stephen Oberlian instead of the correct Orbelian. In sum then, while this book will be of little or no importance to scholars, it will nonetheless serve as a mark of very great distinction on one's coffee table for the beauty of its photographic plates. It will remain the judgment of each individual reader to determine whether such a distinctive adornment is worth $100.00.

   Edward G. Mathews, Jr.




2. I was going to write a huge review to get you excited to buy this, but I see that there is already an exhaustive review. So I will only say that this book could not be better for anyone interested in eastern orthodx art of the coptic/ethiopian/egyptian sort. It is very very richly illustrated with dozens of full page full color icons. It is fantastic! Enjoy!

   You may also enjoy: The Resurrection and the Icon for more material on eastern orthodox iconography/theology




3. Mahmoud Zibawi, Eastern Christian Worlds, trans: Madeleine Beaumont, The Liturgical Press (Collegeville, Minnesota : 1995), ISBN 0-8146-2375-1, 272 pp., Price: $US99.95

   (Review extracted from the Glastonbury Bulletin #100 {the Journal of the British Orthodox Church}. Reprinted by permission of editor.)

   We in the West seem to be experiencing a renewed Orientalism, with few more obvious signs than a singular fascination for the eastern iconographic traditions. Where icons were once assumed to inhabit the domain of populist piety or were relegated by many art historians to a developmental phase of religious art (playing, if you like, the Baptist to the messiah of the Italian Renaissance), the Orthodox icon has now come to occupy the long-vacated space of spiritual art in the popular imagination.

   As with all rediscoveries, however, the western appetite is highly selective and the palette likely to be attracted to those images for which it has been preconditioned. Such has been the case with both the popular and scholarly approaches to the vast heritage of iconography of the ancient world. Ten years ago, while studying icons intensively for a degree, I noted a eurocentric bias - seasoned with a hearty dose of racism - which underpinned the curriculum; indeed, more often than not the `naïf' images (`images', we were told, not `icons') of Ethiopia, when seen at all, were juxtaposed against the glittering domes of Daphni, Hosios Lukas and Nea Moni, to predictable effect. Icons were considered synonymous with Byzantium, not - significantly - with Orthodoxy. Thus those families of Orthodox existing on the geographical periphery of the empire, or whose confessions differed in substance or terminology from the prevailing Constantinopolitan conviction, were marginalised or ignored altogether.

   Mahmoud Zibawi's Eastern Christian Worlds succeeds brilliantly in enlivening our knowledge of the Christian religiosity of the East by focusing our attention onto the largest of such groupings, the Non-Chalcedonian Orthodox. Following upon his well-received The Icon: Its Meaning and History (The Liturgical Press, 1993), Zibawi's recent book manages the difficult feat of appearing compendious and yet comprehensive. Zibawi's book must be lauded primarily for its erudition and comprehensivity, but praise must also be accorded the author for his courage in presenting his work from an unabashedly religionist standpoint. By gathering together so many examples from the kaleidoscopic and prodigious output of the Oriental Orthodox, and then conveying the dynamic piety of the images through exuberant, if occasionally breathless, commentary, the author establishes what Olivier Clément coins in the preface as `the ecumenism of beauty'.

   Zibawi begins his analysis with a welcome historical introduction to the genesis of the Oriental churches. Starting, appropriately enough, with the Great Commission and Pentecost, Zibawi documents the growth of levantine Christianity (with the aid of useful maps) up to the time of the Arab conquest and Islamic hegemony. For those of us who have searched for a concise overview of the historical circumstances which conspired to effect a break in communion between the Orthodox, look no further; in the space of a dozen pages the author presents a clear synopsis which will prove of interest to historian and general reader alike. It was with relief that I noted Zibawi is not one of those who concentrate on the discordant, but rather on the unitive: "Crucible of schisms, the Christian East is also the world in the middle, the place of exchanges, and the heart of communions. (p.19)"

   The second and third chapters illustrate the extraordinary cultural and artistic conversations between Oriental Christianity and Islam. Thankfully the author, though obviously a devoted Christian, is possessed of a mature and sympathetic attitude towards the Islamic faith and is thus more interested in documenting the interchange between the two than in sponsoring some sort of aesthetics-based polemics: "In contradistinction to the doctrinal objections and violent aversions attested by history, Islam often appears tolerant, transparent, and prone to sympathy. (p.21)" One suspects that Zibawi, Lebanese by birth and resident in Paris, and a painter himself, is in an ideal position to analyse this extraordinary encounter between faiths; one iconic, the other aniconic. For all of the evident differences, Eastern Christianity and Islam share a conviction that that which is properly Beautiful is inseparable from that which is Good, and that contemplation of the invisible encourages the eye to strain towards the transfigured visible. The recognition of this empathy allowed for an ongoing artistic partnership that enriched the output of both communities. Zibawi's enlightened analysis of these shared influences puts paid to the strangely pervasive notion that the arts of the Non-Chalcedonian Orthodox were somehow hermetically sealed before the Arab invasion and remain unaltered to this day. The fact remains that Oriental Christians were, and are, heavily influenced by Islam, just as both were inheritors of hellenism: Stoicism, Aristotelianism, Platonism and Neoplatonism entered both Christianity and Islam, were sacralised, and then refracted endlessly from one to the other, and to the benefit of both.

   Chapters four through seven examine the arts of the Syrians, the Armenians, the Egyptians and the Ethiopians, respectively. I confess to be almost wholly ignorant of the artistic heritage of Armenia, but felt overcome by its achievements, particularly in the fields of manuscript illumination and the relief carvings of the church of the Holy Cross in Aghthamar, built a thousand years ago by Gagik I. It seems to me that a good percentage of the literature on the Armenian Apostolic Church seeks either to disavow or to exaggerate Western influence: here the Seljuk, Mongol and Frankish influences upon the Armenian religious arts are all given their proper place. (Indeed Zibawi's thesis, in this as in other chapters, seems to be that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts - a welcome lack of reductionism for an art historian!) Nevertheless the author doesn't shirk from deeming unsuccessful those Armenian artists who, from the seventeenth century, begin to emulate Renaissance and Baroque models. It seems that Dürer doesn't cross the Black Sea entirely successfully.

   The chapter on Syria emphasises, rightly in my opinion, the pivotal place of the Rabbula Gospels of 586 in the subsequent development of Byzantine iconographic types. The plasticity of the forms (indeed the most arresting image of the Virgin extant, if you ask me), the unfolding of space, the immediacy of emotional force, and the employment of formal devices to exaggerate a theological program all coalesce in such a fashion that much subsequent Byzantine iconography often appears little more than a footnote. Zibawi then traces the cross-fertilisation between Byzantine-oriented Syria and Persian-oriented Mesopotamia - indeed the Abbasid Caliphate appears to have sponsored something of a mediaeval iconographic renaissance. Unfortunately the latter part of the subsequent Ottoman dominance ushers in a period of stylistic confusion, inaugurated in major part by the intrusion of Catholic missionaries and the installation of Eastern Catholic rites. The later Aleppo icons are all rather stolid affairs, not quite icons and not quite Western devotional imagery. The presence of rosaries and the preponderance of such types as the Immaculate Conception all speak to an art bereft of identity.

   Nowhere is the magnificent imagination of the religious artist more obvious than in the land of Cush. Ethiopian icons, until very recently all-too-often regarded as animism with an overlay of Gospel, are incontrovertibly confronting to the Western eye, conditioned as it is by Masaccio's one-point perspective and Michelangelo's (deceptive un-) naturalism. The assault of colour, the confidence of execution, the rejection of tonality and the sheer modernity of the images all conspire to elevate Ethiopian icons from any historical context and place them squarely in the realm of the eternal moment. One cannot but feel the image occupies some sort of dreamscape otherwise only accessible to the saint or ascetic. This said, I can only be thankful that Zibawi didn't fall prey to the common temptation to reduce his discussion of the Ethiopian icon to its `painterly qualities' or to its (groan) `child-like innocence and naïveté'. If anything his examination of the rigorous theological underpinnings of such works is more sustained here than anywhere else in the book, thus providing a welcome relief from the rash of recent studies which concentrate solely on formalist and stylistic traits to the expense of the mature theological dimensions of the works. One suspects that however well-intentioned the desire of the recent generation of art historians to reclaim Ethiopian religious imagery for the dubious honour of proto-abstractionism, there is still an unacknowledged debasement of Ethiopian Christianity at its c

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No comments about Gates of Mystery. the Art of Holy Russia.

1 comments about The Cloisters: Studies in Honor of the Fiftieth Anniversary.

1. This academic tome is the best introduction to the many delights of the famed Cloisters Museum in upper Mahattan.

   Thoughtful and scholarly articles by leading authorities on medieval art make for wonderful reading for the medieval art scholar or serious enthusiast.

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No comments about Faces of Power and Piety (J. Paul Getty Museum Medieval Imagination).

No comments about The Master of the Hohenfurth Altarpiece.