[Reader-list] Arab Science and Renaissance Art: by Hans Belting at IGNCA

[inder salim]

presentation  by Hans Belting  at INGCA on 14th Oct.
Arab Science and Renaissance Art. A cross cultural History of Gaze.

for those who were not there:

Mr. Belting ended his presentation  almost like this :  In Islamic
culture ( the other ) the image has to be inside the book. The image
on its own will attain an iconic status which will eventually omit out
the details that manifested it in the first place.   The image in
Islamic art is not outside but something which happens though a
thorough understanding of light, both through its reflected and
refracted phenomenon.  His presentation was quite methodical, I guess
precisely because of his acute sense of role played by science in the
making of art. That science which was part of Arab culture during
ottoman umpire and beyond.

He elegantly dismissed what we casually call 'decorative in Islamic
Art'  This so called decorative pattern had in fact happened because
of some acute understanding of science of  Geometry in Arab world.
The hero  of his presentation was  Alhazen ( born 950 AD, basra )
http://home.att.net/~mleary/alhazen.htm  .  He said that the change
from  Alhazen's work on PERESPECTIVE  to OPTICS  was like changing it
from Latin ton Greek, which immensely distorted his original work
based on scientific research.

 It is not his subject to enter the ways of Sufi dealing with Light,
and simultaneously added that it is quite boring to hear only about
Quran and Mohammad ( prophet ) when we talk about Islamic world. He
also pointed out that even those are doing research on Islamic art
need to look into this segment of Alhazen's scientific understanding
of perspective and light, without which it is bound  to become
decorative only, or something else.

One of his titles is THE INVISIBLE MASTER PIECE, THE MYTH OF  MODERN
ART, which he talked about what the other is all about. The culture of
the other, becomes invisible because of this western gaze.  Here he
mentioned himself  as the westerner, who is at the same time looking
at what is west and what is this other. At that time, of course I
thought of Edward Said's Orientalism.

http://www.nature.com/eye/journal/v18/n11/fig_tab/6701578f2.html  just
this slide from his presentation was simply breath taking.

He talked about ' gireya ( knots ) which are created by the light
passing though various parts of body after going though myriad
reflections and refraction in cosmos, So there is no single
perspective to understand what is visible. The symbolism, therefore,
was radically different from Renaissance in this respect at least.
http://longstreet.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/04/17/blogoptics040.jpg

If you know more about this hero Alhazen, please share

Love
is



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