A Second Discussion of the Star-Shaped Islamic Tiles

As I return to the Islamic tiles that I briefly discussed one month ago, I am approaching them with a new, more informed mindset regarding Islamic scribal work and material culture. In my previous blog post, I stressed the superior importance of the scribal artwork over the floral designs in the interior of the tiles. However, it is clear to me now that I underestimated the complexity of this relationship; a further examination of the tiles as well as a consideration of their audience and of certain background literature yields conflicting conclusions as to whether or not the text on the object was fully appreciated by the viewer.

Certain evidence reinforces my prior conclusion. For example, the two tiles, which were elements of the same wall in an Iranian shrine, are of the same brown-white color scheme. Unless the objects that the Harvard Art Museums acquired were coincidentally matching tiles in a multicolored wall, which seems unlikely, the entire wall (or a significant portion of it) must have been similarly colored. Noting that the brown covers much more area than the white, the wall must have appeared fairly uniform in color. Given that the text is placed on a contrasting white background, the portion of the tile containing text must have truly jumped out at the viewer amidst the sea of brown. If one’s eyes would indeed have been drawn to the text, then what would one have noticed next? Certainly, such calligraphic artwork would have been intimately familiar for all Islamic viewers, and even more so for literate viewers who would have recognized the text as verses from the Quran. As Beatrice Gruendler noted in “Book Culture before Print,” parchment versions of the Quran in the Islamic world “became the earliest object[s] of scribal art.” Thus, these tiles follow in a grand artistic and textual tradition, which would have been well established by the time they were created in the thirteenth century. Intriguingly, even without seeing any portion of the tiles other than the text, one could guess that they date from later than the ninth century. This is due to the presence of diacritics marking the vowels in the tiles, which Gruendler says were not regularly used until the beginning of the tenth century. Moreover, the diacritics make the text much easier to read, again suggesting that the text in the tiles was of significant importance.

Yet, I have neglected thus far to truly contemplate the location of the tiles and their audience. These considerations lead to strikingly different conclusions. First, I assumed in my earlier blog post that viewers in the Middle Ages would have been looking at the tiles from the same distance that I was in the gallery. However, it is abundantly clear from lecture and section discussions that this was not necessarily the case; the tiles could have been quite far away from their observers. If this is true, it puts one of my previous points in question. In my other blog post on the Islamic tiles, I thought that the “rushed” appearance of the floral patterns in comparison to the neatly ordered text indicated a greater importance attached to the latter. I can take this one step further and posit that this appearance may be due to these tiles being “mass produced,” in which a large number of scribes and artists (if one can make such a distinction) were crafting a large number of tiles of this type. For the viewer far from the tiled wall, nevertheless, this reduced quality would not have made an observable difference, as it is only from up close that once can discern the imprecise lines in the tiles. Furthermore, the diminished care accorded to each individual tile suggests that perhaps there were a large number of tiles to be made for the shrine’s wall or that the shrine was less grand than I initially imagined and its creator could not afford higher quality tiles. Any of the above hypotheses would mean that people would likely have not been paying close attention to the verses on the individual tiles but rather looking at the wall as a whole. In fact, such an “overall” observance of religious wall decoration in the medieval Islamic world is supported by the text of Naser-e Khosraw’s Book of Travels. For example, when Khosraw visited the Dome of the Rock, surely abundant calligraphic decoration was present in the interior of the edifice. Yet, this is not what Khosraw notes down in his description of the Dome. He notes, rather, the architecture, the shapes and colors of the interior, and the “geometric designs.” It would thus appear that, as today, the average individual visiting a religious site would have viewed the interior decoration as a whole rather than closely analyzing the constituent text and images.

I do not believe that the conclusions of my first blog post on the tiles are entirely invalid due to the points raised in this one. There is still distinctly more effort taken on the part of the tiles’ creators to write and align the text on the perimeter as opposed to precisely drawing the patterns within. Additionally, a religious figure or devout individual who spent a great deal of time in the shrine may very well have paid close attention to the Quranic verses on the tiles. It seems, nonetheless, that for the casual viewer the tiled wall would have been observed as a whole, with the text and floral design melding into each other to form an iridescent and beautiful place of worship.

Medieval Audiences: "The Adoration of the Shepherds" Revisited

             As was described in my first post about “The Adoration of the Shepherds,” this work by Bartolommeo Bulgarini features only four words – the “Ave Maria Gratia Plena” adorning Mary’s halo. If we consider the context in which this painting appears, the significance of these words might be made clearer.

            According to the description accompanying this painting in the Harvard Art Museum, “The Adoration of the Shepherds” was part of a larger series of paintings; the cathedral at Siena, the original location of this work, featured numerous scenes from the life of Mary. The Virgin’s centrality in “The Adoration of the Shepherds” therefore makes sense, as does her privileged possession of a text-laden halo.

            But why the words “Hail Mary, full of grace”? Is there any precedence for this found in the other paintings featured at the Siena cathedral? We can check these paintings to find out. The other paintings are the following: "Birth of the Virgin" by Pietro Lorenzetti, "Annunciation" by Simone Martini, and "Purification" by Ambrogio Lorenzetti. Rounding up these paintings with a simple online search reveals that the first two have text-free halos for Mary, while the final painting has this surrounding the Virgin's head:

           The right side of the halo is nearly indecipherable, but on the left side we can easily make out the word "Virgo," i.e. "Virgin." This tells us a few things. First, putting text on Mary's halo was nothing out of the ordinary. Second, these commonplace labels were just that - labels. "Hail Mary, full of grace" doesn't tell us very much about what's going on in "The Adoration of the Shepherds." It manages to identify Mary, sure, but it doesn't reflect anything else going on in the scene. The "Virgo" halo in Ambrogio Lorenzetti's "Purification" similarly seems to identify Mary and do little more.  

           The writing in these paintings gives us examples of public text. Both of these were located in a cathedral, and anyone could have in theory walked up to them and read the words. Perhaps accordingly, the text was brief and recognizable. We may contrast this with more private pieces of text, i.e. books. Books, with their great length and complexity, were rather esoteric. Only people with a thorough knowledge of Latin could even hope to read them. Furthermore, the production of books was no small task back then. Creating a manuscript required parchment, ink, and scribes. According to historian Michael Clanchy, manuscripts were incredibly expensive during the Middle Ages, mostly because of the scribes’ wages. Indeed, production of a typical medieval manuscript would require numerous scribes working over a period of weeks or months (production of manuscripts was so tedious, in fact, that full Bibles were virtually nonexistent until the later Middle Ages). Because of this cost, books were only available to the wealthy. 

           Now, creation of the above paintings was no small task either. But when one of these paintings was finished, everyone was able to enjoy it. The intended audience size was infinite. The intended audience size for the average medieval manuscript, though? Obviously much smaller, but not as small as you may think. Nowadays books are so plentiful that each physical copy practically has a unique owner. The modern intended audience size for an individual book, then, is one. During the Middle Ages, however, there weren't nearly enough books to go around for everyone who could read. Production was simply too difficult. Sure, members of the royalty were able to get their hands on texts, but what about everyone else? The monks had a simple solution.

           Otloh of St. Emmeram described his own book The Temptations of a Monk as being "for those who had just entered religious life and wanted to read sacred scripture." Notice the use of the word "those." Otloh assumed that his audience could take on an arbitrary size. No one individual was to own Otloh's manuscript. Instead, The Temptations of a Monk was intended to be a communal resource. In other words, St. Emmeram must have had a library. 

           At this point we may observe a continuum of textual audience sizes in the Middle Ages. Some pieces of text - simple inscriptions like "Ave Maria Gratia Plena" - were aimed at everybody. Some books were funded by kings and made specifically for those kings. Other books, like The Temptations of a Monk, occupied a sort of middle-ground, serving anyone with a good enough understanding of Latin and a desire to learn.

Another Look at the Woman Gazing at her Reflection

         

When I first wrote about this Ottoman manuscript folio, I focused on the ways that it represents the role of the scribe and the importance of writing as an art in the Middle Ages. Looking at it again, however, I realize that it exemplifies many other aspects of the Medieval world that I have learned about in the past few weeks. As I revisit the “Woman Gazing at her Reflection” I will focus on the object as a representation of poetry and a symbol of material wealth, as well as discuss some of the visual aspects of the folio as a work of art.

            These pages are from a manuscript of the Rawda al-Ushshaq or “Garden of Lovers” recorded by Arifi, the official court historian of Suleyman the Magnificent. The story itself is an Islamic tale modeled after the Ferdowsi’s Shahnama in meter and style. The first pages of the manuscript are an introduction about the prophet followed by section dedicated to praising the ruler. This particular folio contains one of only three paintings in the entire manuscript, and it depicts Alexander the Great (left) looking at the unnamed woman gazing at her reflection in a pool of water (right). According to the story, it is in this moment that Alexander is inspired to invent a mirror out of glass.

            The sheer elegance of the way this folio looks says a lot about the value of poetry in the Middle Ages. It features gold and blue pigments, and it uses paper rather luxuriously with the pictures and writing taking up only about half of each page. Manuscripts like this one took months to produce in workshops of scribes and artists working tirelessly to create a book of incredible value. These books were reserved for the royal class and they were more a symbol of wealth and power than objects for reading. In this way, poetry was not only a cultural tradition but in cases like these, a sort of delicacy. The poet, in turn, was also a highly regarded figure as is recounted in Nizami Aruzi’s Four Discourses. The anecdotes featured in the Second Discourse tell tales of poets who served the royal class and were honored with great fame and material wealth.

            It is worth noting that the poet’s job was not to create new and original poetry as we might assume in the modern day. The Rawda al-Ushshaq must have been a story that was told and retold several times before Arifi created this manuscript. There is no definite creator of the tale and the Garden of Lovers that Arifi recorded must be an amalgamation of versions told by poets and orators through the ages. The poem was not even totally original in the first place– its style mimics the Shahnama. This sort of copying and reworking is common in Medieval Islamic poetry. To innovate would be to challenge divine power, so the poet’s job was to reuse verses already circulating in his culture. The Shahnama in particular is one of the most prominent works of Persian poetry ever written and I imagine that multiple poems have been modeled after it.

            Apart from the content of the script, there are some interesting points about the imagery and aesthetics of the folio that I did not notice when I first looked at it. One thing is the posing of Alexander the Great. He is pictured with his finger in his mouth, which I have learned is a symbol of amazement. This makes sense since this is the scene where he has a revelation about mirrors. However, this pose is commonly seen in background figures or minor characters who represent spectators of the scene. The fact that a major character is depicted with this pose raises the question of whether the finger biting means the same thing in both cases. The text in the painting is also a curious aspect of the piece. While the rest of the text is written in neatly separated boxes, this page contains text that is integrated with the illustration. This makes me wonder what this text might say. What makes it special? Is it a verse from the story or is it something else?

            Revisiting the Woman Gazing at her Reflection has made me realize that this folio is much more than a scribal object. It is also a poem, an object of wealth and power, and a work of art. It tells not only the story of the Rawda al-Ushshaq but also many stories about the Medieval Islamic world.

Reflection on the Umayyad Dinars

Reflecting on my Scribal Object, there is so much I have learned since that first post, and the information and knowledge I have acquired since then has allowed to see my object in a new light, and reflect and elaborate more on the life of my object. As a reminder, I picked the Umayyad Dinars, Islamic gold coins of the Medieval age with inscriptions of verses of the Qur’an written in Arabic. As we had learned in class, the Scribe of the Middle ages transcribed on many materials: papyrus was the most common, as well as parchment. But often times, the Scribe wrote on other significant items as well, including Monumental objects, vessels, tiles and in this coins. The dinar was (and is to this day) the currency of the Islamic World. For the most part, words written on objects centered around the pillar and foundation of the Islamic World in the Middle Age, the Qur’an, “one of the earliest objects of scribal art” (Gruendler, 7) as well as “the basis for the formulation of Muslim ritual and law” (Gruendler, 8). The Qur’an, the religious text and foundation of Islam, was the pillar of the Islamic World in the Middle Ages, and was an intricate and prominent aspect of the lives of the people in the Islamic World: their entire lives centered around the text.

So as I had stated in my first post, it really shouldn’t come as a surprise that text of the Qur’an would be inscribed on the currency of the Islamic World at this time. On the obverse of one dinar states “There is no god but God alone. He has no partner. Muhammad is the messenger of God, who sent him with guidance and the religion of truth so that he may proclaim it above all religions” (Qur’an 9:33). Since this time I have been able to explore and read the Qur’an in order to better understand why this verse might have been used. I learned that this same verse is repeated only three times in the Qur’an and essentially embodies the core message of the Qur’an itself. It is a verse of great gravity in the Islamic World, and would have been something everyone immersed in the teachings of the Qur’an would know. The second dinar presented in the reverse expressed another text found in the Qur’an “God is One. God is eternal. He begets not, nor is he begotten” (Qur’an 112:1). This expression would oppose the other polytheistic religions of the time, and even opposed the Christian view of God regarding Trinitarianism (The three persons of God). The Qur’an was a core aspect of the Middle Ages of the Islamic World: the text written on this coin would have been something familiar to one living in during this time period. The text itself is written in Arabic, the language of the Prophet Muhammad. As stated prior, this is an Umayyad Dinar: the Umayyad dynasty was one of the first great Muslim dynasties, as well as was an Arab Kingdom.

Since my first post, I learned the process in which coins such as these were made. It involved taking melted metal and inserting it into a mold with the intention of making coin blanks. The molded metal would be then taken out mold. These blank coins would be solid, but still malleable. The coin would be placed between dies and smashed, leaving an imprint of the desired text, script or image on the coin. From one of my professors I learned of the first ruler of the Umayyad Dynasty, the Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, was the individual who orchestrated the creation of the Islamic coin, the golden dinar. Now discussing the coin’s practical uses, it would have been used for commercial exchange for goods and services, and those living in the Umayyad Dynasty would recognize this coin as a currency approved and made by their rulers. The language choice of the coin would reflect the official language of the kingdom at that time as well. Thus, the choice of Arabic used on the coin as well as the choice of text written on the coin expresses a prevalent message that would have had significant meaning in the lives of the people who lived their lives according the teachings written in the Qur’an.

Since my first scribal object post, I have been able to read portions of the Qur’an as well as have familiarized myself with Islamic texts to some extent. Especially the Hadith. Although one may see this as just a coin, the history surrounding the coin and the time period it comes from is rich in information and reveals a great deal of history. I hope in the future that the knowledge I have gained since will allow me to better understand Medieval text in the Islamic World and in general the life of objects in the Middle Ages.