The Human Figure in Early Islamic Art

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The Human Figure in Early Islamic Art: Some Preliminary Remarks

Author(s): Eva BaerSource: Muqarnas, Vol. 16 (1999), pp. 32-41Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1523264

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THE HUMAN FIGURE IN EARLY SLAMICART:SOME PRELIMINARY EMARKS

The following lines are a concise summary of a larg-er project on the development of the human figurein the arts of Islam from its very beginning in Syriaand Egypt to about the sixteenth century in Iran andCentral Asia. The present notes are therefore pre-liminary; they require further refinement and proba-bly some elaboration of particular points not touchedupon here.

Generally speaking, paintings of the human figurein early Islam can tentatively be divided into two mainphases. The first covers the Umayyad and early Ab-basid era between the late seventh and tenth centu-ry; the second begins in the late tenth or the earlyeleventh century, covers Fatimid art in Egypt, andculminates in the late-twelfth- to mid-thirteenth-cen-tury paintings in Mesopotamia. The two periods dif-fer stylistically and iconographically, but they also sharesome common sources that are reflected not only inthe style of the figures, but also in the themes in whichthey appeared.It is common knowledge, and need not to be re-iterated, that Umayyad and early Abbasid artists werestill in quest of a vocabulary that suited the require-ments of Islamic society. The language they used there-fore primarily reflected Sasanian and Greco-Romanconventions. From the Sasanian tradition they inher-ited the frequent representations of royalty, royalentourages, and favorite royal pastimes. They alsoinherited from them the desire to demonstrate visu-ally the continuity of their princely lineage by paint-ing the "portraits" of their kings on the walls of theirroyal residences. Indeed, Muslim historians and ge-ographers claim to have seen wall paintings in theform of "picture galleries" of the Sasanian kings andPersian annals with pictures of these kings. In 915,for example, Mas'udi claims to have seen in the houseof a notable of Istakhr a precious manuscript whichcontained portraits of twenty-five Persian kings andtwo queens, beginning with Ardashir and ending withYazdegird. These portraits, Mas'udi claims, had been

made at the death of each monarch, and stored the archives of royal picture galleries. The author adthat the Umayyad caliph Hisham (727-43) haddered an Arabic translation made of this work. Mas'udoes not say whether the pictures were also copieonto the translation of the text, but he describes thekings with all their garments and attributes, and evmentions their poses and gestures.' We also lea

Fig. 1. Bas relief with Shapur II enthroned. Bishapur, 30379. In situ. (Photo: from R. Girschman,Iran, ParthiansaSassanians [London, 1962], p. 184)


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THE HUMAN FIGURE IN EARLY ISLAMIC ART

Fig. 3. Coin of YazdegardIII. Struckin A.D. 633. Paris,Bibtheque Nationale, Cabinet des Medailles, no. 921. (Phofrom R. Girschman, Iran, Parthians and Sassanians [Londo1962], p. 251)

Fig. 2. Rock crystal medallion with effigy of KhusrawI. 6thcentury or later. Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, Cabinet desMedailles, no. 2358. (Photo: from R. Girschman, Iran, Par-thians and Sassanians [London, 1962], p. 205)

from Firdawsi that the palace of Mahmud of Ghaznawas decorated with "portraits" of the kings and he-roes of Iran and Turan, and many more examplescould be cited.So far no traces of such wall paintings or manu-

scripts have come to light. But princely effigies madein Umayyad and Abbasid times after Sasanian mod-els are preserved in official art, such as coins andmedals, as well as in other media (figs. 1-2), includ-ing floor paintings and sculpture.2 They all have onething in common, and that is that they are based onan idealized type of Sasanian king and show no like-ness to the person they are supposed to represent(figs. 3-4).

Equally well documented are human effigies basedon Greco-Roman or late-antique models. One has onlyto recall the bas relief of the reclining woman at Qasral-Hayr al-Gharbi; or the hunting and other scenesof royal entertainment; or the so-called Fortuna; orthe naked woman in an aedicule on the wall paint-

Fig. 4. Gold medal with effigy of 'Adud al-Dawlah.TehrPrivate Collection. (Photo: from M. Bahrami,"AGold Mein the Freer Gallery of Art," Archaeologiaorientalia in MemorErnstHerzfeld Locust Valley, N.Y., 1952], pl. 1, 2b)

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EVA BAER

Fig. 5. Female dancer. Coptic textile, ca. 7th century. Bern,Abegg-Stiftung. (Photo: AbeggStiftung Bern in Riggisberg[1973],p. 4)

ings at Qusayr 'Amra.3 Both the Fortuna and thewoman in the aedicule recall Faiyum or Antinoe por-traits, which in style, costume, and facial shape areRoman, and supposedly were copied by Romans liv-ing in the Egyptian hinterland. By the same tokenthe female dancers at Qusayr 'Amra reflect dancingwomen on Coptic textiles (fig. 5) which, like thepainted or carved dancers in Fatimid Egypt, weredesigned in Egypto-Roman style.4The artistic traditions behind these works of art-be they late Roman or Sasanian-must also have ap-pealed to the taste of early Islamic society. This isparticularly evident if we compare pre-Islamic witheighth-century early Islamic representations of thefemale body which, following a common ideal canonof beauty, had to be voluptuous, with full breasts, fleshy

~f!!!i!::.:i, _Fig. 6. Fragment of female sculpture from Mshatta. BerStaatliche Museen ffir Islamische Kunst, no.J 6172. (Phocourtesy Staatliche Museen fuirIslamische Kunst, Berlin

buttocks, and sloping hips. Take, for instance, tlate Roman figure of Artemis in a mid-third-centurmosaic emblem from Shahba-Philippopolis, or trepresentation of Aphrodite in another mosaic frothe same site, but dated about a century later. In bomosaics the concentrically placed tesserae clearaccentuate the bosom and belly, as well as the hip and thigh of these goddesses.5 By the same ken, some of the Sasanian nudes or semi-nudes, lithe harpist in the mosaics of Bishapur, or a femadancer on one of the boat-shaped silver bowls,veal similar characteristics.6 In concept they, too, aclosely related to the fragmentary stone sculpturof Mshatta (now in Berlin and Amman) (fig. 6),to the female stucco sculptures at Khirbat al-MafjaWhether the latter follow Central Asian or Indiprototypes, as has sometimes been argued, is not r

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Fig. 7. Fatimid luster plate with cock fight. 11th century. Keir Collection no. 88. (Photo: from B. W. Robinson, ed., IslamPainting and the Arts of the Book [London, 1976]).

evant here, and in any case is questionable. Theirimportance lies in the fact that they responded tothe idea of female beauty in the new Islamic society,and reflected the taste of the patron who commis-sioned them.

In the first phase, roughly outlined above, the

images were related in one way or another to thruler, and showed either his effigy, his entourage anmembers of his harem, or various aspects of roypastimes. In the second phase, beginning towards thend of the tenth century, the range of human imaery widened. Although the preference for princel

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.,i L~: .:~ii~i/?:i?.'.: ::?:~: -uFig.atimidlustedishwithwreslingscene.Cair,MuseumofIslmicArt,no.96'"9'" (Phoo fromichad'''~ii'!'iiii' ',il' , sWIi":i~!'.':;.

?, ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.. ?r?~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~"'5 ' . ......e..E ..:..:i'

t *iP ,B&..,. ; ,,.ES , .s ?.Fig.8.timdsterdis wih wrstlng sene Caio, usem ofIslmic rt,no. 689 (Poto:fro RicardEttighasen

ArabicPainting [New York, 1962], pp. 55, 82)

imagery remained, Fatimid artists, followed by Meso-potamian painters in the later twelfth and thirteenthcentury, also included people from the lower socialorders in their repertoire. This change, which somescholars have connected to the rising bourgeoisie butwhich has never been studied in depth, brought abouta new attitude towards the human figure, which, aswe shall see below, occasionally even led to carica-ture.

Early evidence for this new attitude is provided bysome Fatimid ceramics, which depict scenes of pop-ular entertainment, like the cock fight (fig. 7) de-picted on an eleventh-century luster-painted bowl inthe Keir Collection (no. 88). The two performers,apparently a man and an eunuch with a fattish, ef-feminate face, hold the cocks in preparation for thefight, and seem to examine each other with looks sohostile that it appears to be they, and not the cocks,

who are the rivals. Or take the two men in a mofight with staves (Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo, n14516), or the wrestlers (fig. 8) who, accompanieby a trainer and what seems to be an audience, afull of movement and action expressing physical straand individuality-traits totally missing from the iages of princely or royal status.8 This new trendFatimid Egypt is given its final expression in early-mid-thirteenth-century paintings in Mesopotamia. Tmost obvious examples come from the so-calleSchefer Hariri (dated 634 [1237]). Take, for instancthe sleeping travelers in the miniature of a caravat rest, in Paris, BN 5847 (fol. 9: fig. 9), whose copletely relaxed poses and closed eyes are so realisthat they appear to be the result of the artist's actuobservation of tired men having a good night's reThe groom, who sits next to the camels, even hcaricature-like features. Another example of this n

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Fig. 9. Resting caravan. Hariri, Maqamat. Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, ms. ar. 5847, fol. 9. (Photo: from Oleg Grab"Art and Architecture," in The Genius of Arab Civilization [Oxford, 1976], p. 93)

approach are the mourners in the funerary scene,also in Paris, BN 5847 (fol. 29v; fig. 10), who expresstheir grief by rending their garments, gesticulatingwildly with their hands, raising their eyebrows, ortearing their unkempt hair.These and numerous other examples, which attestto the changing attitude towards the human figure,are also reflected in contemporary writings. A typicalinstance is an anecdote mentioned by Richard Etting-hausen, according to which a humble Iraqi glassblowerthreatened the poet Bashshar ibn Burd, known forhis ugliness, that if he, the poet, would write a satiricpoem against him, he, the glassblower, would painthis face on the door of his house.9 Had the glass-blower painted the face of the poet on the door, itpresumably would have been a "mock portrait" or a

caricature like the drawing of Bashshar's ugly facSuch an assumption seems reasonable in view of tiric or mocking pictures on Fatimid lusterware. Takfor instance, the satirical "portrait" of a fat, mustacheand double-chinned monk on a fragmentary bowl thoriginally depicted a scene from the life of the Copin Egypt.10 It is a caricature of the Christian monas are the funny faces and grimaces on other Fatiid fragments.11A typical example of a satiric or mocking pictuin Mesopotamia is a miniature from a dispersed manscript of the Materia Medica, copied in Rajab 621 (JunJuly 1224). Once owned by Vever and now in tSackler Gallery, Washington, D.C. (S 86.0097), it shoa blindfolded man (fig. 11) being ministered to byhalf-naked person with a big belly. The miniatur

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EVA BAER

!_r~~i- -, . , , .,:~"i::;:-........ .........,;......

Fig. 10. Funeraryscene. Hariri,Maqamdt.Paris,BibliothequeNationale, ms. ar. 5847, fol. 29v. (Photo: from Oleg Grabar,"Art and Architecture," in The Genius of Arab Civilization[Oxford, 1976], p. 30)

which is not directly related to the text, appears tobe a parody of a medical treatment, and the half-naked person seems to be mocking a real one. Curi-ously enough the man resembles al-Jahiz's descrip-tion of a certain Ahmad ibn al-Wahab, who in theKitab al-tarbz wa'l tadwir12 is said to be quadrangular,although because of his enormous paunch and widehips he appears to be round.We also have contemporary Iranian evidence forthe trend toward painting men and women morerealistically. For instance, in an anecdote includedin the Chahar maqala, Nizami Aruzi Samarkandi talksabout the use of portraiture in warrants. Accordingto the story, the Khwarazm shah, in order to find

Fig. 11. Medieval treatment of blindfolded man. Single lfrom the MateriaMedica of Dioscorides. Washington, D.Sackler Gallery, S 86.0097. (Photo: from Glenn LowryaSusan Nemazee, AJeweler's ye [Washington, D.C., 1988],70)Ibn Sina, asked a painter by the name of Abu Nas'Arraq to draw his portrait. He then asked other aists to make forty copies of this portrait, whichthen sent to all the neighboring rulers, saying: "Theis a man after this likeness whom they call Abu 'Aibn Sina. Seek him out and send him to me."13 Othevidence is provided by Nizami Ganjawi, who in hKhusraw and Shirin romance makes the painter nameShapur declare that the people he draws move athe birds he paints fly. Elsewhere, however, Nizammaintains that since men can only be created by Gothe painted image has no soul, and has no mocorporeal substance than the reflections in a mirror.1Be that as it may, between the second half of t

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Fig. 12. The so-called devil dancer. Persian silhouette ware,late 12th century. London, British Museum, no. 1956-7-28.5.(Photo: from Arthur Lane, Early Islamic Pottery [London,1947], pl. 49)

twelfth and the mid thirteenth centuries Iranian paint-ers too "portrayed"-as it were-grotesque figures likejongleurs, popular dancers, and scoundrels, which infact look as if they were modeled after shadow-playfigures. They generally appear as a silhouette on late-twelfth-century Persian ceramics, painted in black slipunder turquoise or clear glaze. Typical examples arethe so-called devil dancer in the British Museum(1956-7-28.5) (fig. 12), and the male dancer in theVictoria and Albert Museum (fig. 13),15 where thepainter has especially stressed the man's spike-likehair. On another dish of this type a figure, seatedwith crossed legs and raised arms, has a dispropor-tionately long nose, elaborately curled hair, and anextremely small forehead.16 It is presumably not in-cidental that similar silhouette figures occur in con-temporary Mesopotamian manuscripts, which proba-bly were also copied from, or at least were inspiredby, shadow-play figures. Ettinghausen, who was thefirst to note these resemblances, pointed, among otherexamples, to the picture of Abu Zayd leaving al-Harithduring the pilgrimage (Maqamat, Bibliotheque Na-tionale, Paris, ms. ar. 3929, fol. 69r), and remarkedthat "even the little plant in the centre [of the scene]looks like a piece of stage property" (fig. 14).17Another example of the relation between shad-ow-play figures and miniature painting is the half-naked, comic person in a detached page from the

Fig. 13. Male dancer with castanets. Persian silhouette waLondon, Victoria and Albert Museum. (Photo: from ArthLane, Early Islamic Pottery [London, 1947], pl. 51a)

dispersed Materia Medica (fig. 11) already mentionedHis elbows and knees are curiously marked by smadisks, as if imitating the joints of puppet figures, alowing them to move, raise their arms and feet, aneven walk. Recently Shmuel Moreh has shown thby the end of the tenth or early eleventh century Ibal-Haytham (ca. 965) in his Kitab al-manazir systemaically discussed the technical details of the shadopuppets: "There are holes pierced in the bodies the shadow play figures, so that they can be helagainst the screen with a stick. . . . The presenterholds another stick in his other hand and with thhe moves their heads, arms and legs." He then continues that the "light of a candle or lamp placed bhind them casts coloured shadows of the translucenfigures on the white screen."18 Although Ibn al-Hatham was born in Basra, he spent most of his lifeEgypt, where he must have seen shadow-play perfomances and studied their techniques. He does nsay where these performances took place, but thwere obviously part of the popular entertainmentswhich were also enjoyed by members of the uppeclass like Salah al-Din.19 It appears, therefore, thshadow plays and shadow playwrights like Muhammad ibn Daniyal (1248-1311) existed much earlie

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Fig. 14. Abu Zayd leaving al-Harith. Hariri, Maqamat. Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, Ns. ar. 3929, fol. 69r. (Photo: froRichard Ettinghausen, Arabic Painting [New York, 1962], p. 82)

than scholars had thought. They may well have in-spired Fatimid artists to include in their repertoirescenes from everydaylife and popular entertainmentand to feel free to depict them in a more realisticstyle.To conclude: Throughout the first Islamic period,which roughly covers the seventh to mid tenth cen-turies, Muslim artists still in quest of their own vo-cabularyadopted foreign, Sasanian, and Greco-Romanmodels and adapted them for their own purposes.They decorated their rooms with pictures taken fromlate-antique traditions, such as hunting and otherscenes of royal pastimes and depicted female danc-ers and musicians, which at the same time indicate acontinuityof norms Muslimsociety had inherited frompreceding Mediterranean civilizations. To judge bywritten descriptions, they also reflect common ideasabout women and similar concepts of ideal femalebeauty. Another motivating factor in official artwas the desire to demonstrate visually the succes-sion of caliphal power by continuing the Sasaniantradition of "picture galleries," for which written

evidence exists up to at least the Ghaznavid perioIn the second phase, beginning in the late tento early eleventh century, the artistic vocabulary bgan to change. On the one hand, the impact of Sanian and Greco-Roman art was retained; on the oter, Islamic artists developed a more "realistic"styremnants of which appear on Fatimid ceramics. Thnew style culminated, or found its full expression,twelfth- to mid-thirteenth-centuryMesopotamian booillustrations.The reason-or perhaps reasons-for this chanstill needs proper explanation, which requires tcooperation of students from other historical displines. For example, who were the artists in thUmayyad and early Abbasid period? Were they locresidents, or Muslims who copied pre-Islamic moels often without understanding their meaning? Anwhat was the relation between patron and artist? Seond, the main medium on which lower-class peopappear are Fatimid luster ceramics. The techniquof lusterware suggests, however, that these ceramwere ordered bymembers of the upper class who couafford the greater expense involved. Third, in vie

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of these questions, the problem of the rising bour-geoisie in Fatimid Egypt and thirteenth-century Me-sopotamia must be reexamined.Tel Aviv UniversityTel Aviv, Israel

NOTES1. 'Ali ibn al-Husayn al-Mas'udi, Kitab al-tanbih wa'l ashraf(Leiden, 1893), pp. 106,5-107,5; trans. Carrade Vaux, El-Ma-coudi, Le livre de l'avertissementParis, 1896), pp. 150-51. Seealso "Extraits du modjmelal-tewarikhrelatifs a l'histoire dela Perse," trans. Jules Mohl, Journal Asiatique, March 1841,Arabic text, pp. 268-78; trans. pp. 258-68.2. Many examples can be found in Katharina Otto-Dorn, "Dasislamische Herrscherbild im frfihen Mittelalter (8.-11.Jh),"in Das Bild in der Kunst des Ostens (Stuttgart, 1990), pp. 61-78.3. Inv. no. J. 1264. For a facsimile, see A. Musil, Kusejr Amra,2 vols. (Vienna, 1907), vol. 2, pl. XXIII; cf. 1: 206.4. For color reproductions of Fortuna and the dancer at Qusayr'Amra, see M. Almagro et al., Qusayr Amra(Madrid, 1975),

pl. IXb and XXVIIc.5. Janine Balty, MosaiquesantiquesdeSyrie(Brussels, 1977), pp.20-21; for Aphrodite, see ibid., pp. 58-59; also figure ofCassiopea, p. 33.6. R. Ghirshman, Iran,Parthiansand Sassanians (London, 1962),figs. 182 and 258.7. For the Mshatta fragments, see L. Trumpelmann, "Die Skulp-turen von Mashatta,"Archdologischer nzeiger2 (1965): 236-76, figs. 1-6, 9-12; on the whole problem concerning the

canon of beauty in early Islam, see Eva Baer, "Female Iages in Early Islam" (in press).8. See Richard Ettinghausen, ArabPainting (New York, 196pp. 55-56.9. Ibid., p. 54.10. Berlin, Museum fur Islamische Kunst, Katalog(Berlin, 197no. 275 and pl. 47.

11. See H. Philon, EarlyIslamic Ceramics 9th to 12th Centurie(Athens, 1980), figs. 487, 489. See also Ali Bey Bahgat aFelix Massoul, La Ceramiquemusulmane de l'Egypte(Cai1930), pl. XXXII,6, which shows the profile of a beardman with a carrot-shaped nose and open mouth.12. Ahmad ibn al-Wahab,Kitab al-tarbiwa'l tadwir,ed. Ch. Pel(Damascus, 1955), p. 5.13. Nizami-i 'Arudi of Samarqand, Chahar maqala, rev. traEdward G. Browne (London, 1900), p. 87, anecdote XXXPersian text edited by Mirza Muhammad, E. J. W. GiMemorial vol. 11, 2 (London, 1921): 77-78. See also Sir TArnold, Painting in Islam (NewYork, 1965), p. 127, who nothat since the reign of Mahmud of Ghazna portraiture mhave been used for purposes of detection.

14. Priscilla Soucek, "Nizami on Painters and Painting," in lamicArt in theMetropolitanMuseumofArt,ed. Richard Ettihausen (New York:Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1972), p17-18.15. Reproduced in Arthur Lane, EarlyIslamic Pottery(Londo1947), pls. 49A and 51A.16 Arthur Upham Pope, A Surveyof Persian Art (Tokyo, 197vol. 10, pl. 750d.17. Ettinghausen, ArabPainting, pp. 82-83.18. Shmuel Moreh, "The Shadow Play (khayalal-zill) in the Liof Arabic Literature,"in JournalofArabicLiterature18 (19847.19. Ibid., p. 48.

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