Paintings in the Early Islamic World
An Early Painting in an Islamic Palace
Bathing scene on west wall of west aisle of audience hall, Qusayr ʿAmra, Jordan, c. 730s (photo by Sean Leatherbury/Manar al-Athar)
The Islamic Palace this painting is from is the "Qusayr ʿAmra." This palace is the palace of the Umayyad caliphs and princes. Most Islamic palaces still have well-preserved paintings, and this painting is one of them. This painting is found in the audience hall of this palace. The audience hall is normally where large crowds and events would be held. The scene is what seems to be a semi-naked woman bathing. The color scheme is tans and blues. The blue in the painting resembles the bathing water, and the rest of the painting is a faded series of tans. You can assume the painting is faded due to wear and aging. In the background of the image, you notice many people. There is a line of men in robes on what seems to be a balcony, many of them are gawking, pointing, and making some sort of expression. It is very faint, but the men are to the left of the woman above her shoulder. This scene is up for interpretation; however, you can surely agree there is some sort of commotion. In a way, you could almost connect this scene to that of the Roman goddess Venus. Venus is the symbol of beauty and in many of the paintings of her, she is nearly nude and surrounded by life. She is worshipped for being beautiful, and maybe this woman is too. While the two might have similarities, this woman is not Venus. In old times it would not have been appropriate to have pagan gods in Muslim art. It is possible that while she bathes in public, the men around her are in awe of her beauty. A question I have would be why is this painting in the middle of an audience hall? It is possible there was a bath in the audience hall, in many cases a bath could have been considered a social space. Clearly the painting has to have some sort of importance. Another possibility is that the people in the painting were real people. There is speculation that the man in the blue robes is the prince, al-Walid ibn Yazid, himself. That could explain why the scene is in the audience hall. It could also just be that the prince wanted an amazing display of unique pieces all around his palace. I find it interesting how the paintings of Qusayr 'Amra have lasted so long. Art from early time periods, even including Islamic art, mainly get so worn and aged over the years. It is cool to see such a nice painting in such good quality.
https://smarthistory.org/paintings-early-islamic-world/
Dr. Beatrice Leal, "Paintings in the early Islamic world," in Smarthistory, July 17, 2021, accessed September 23, 2021, https://smarthistory.org/paintings-early-islamic-world/.
I think you did an amazing job describing the overall image, the vocabulary you used was very artistic like “color scheme”, but in all you sounded like you knew what you were talking about so the piece was easier to read and understand. Did you make the connection to Venus or is it just a guess of who it is? You have back up information on how it connects to other paintings of her so personally I took it as if that was her also. Your writing is very persuasive, you did a great job!
ReplyDeleteThis was a great Post, you gave great detail and i feel like if i didnt have the art infront of me i could get a picture of it in my head. Thank you.
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