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REVIEWS

THE AESTHETICS AND ART HISTORY OF ISLAMIC CULTURES

Islamic Aesthetics An Introduction byOliver Leaman, The New Edinburgh

Islamic Surveys, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004, 211 pp., d60.00

hdbk, d17.99 pbk

Oliver Leaman has published widely on Islamic philosophy and theology and this book

on Islamic aesthetics appears to be a new direction for him, delving as it does into

art-historical theory, architecture, music, calligraphy, painting and even the Islamic

garden. AlthoughIslamic Aesthetics An Introductionlooks at art from the point of view

of a philosopher of aesthetics, Leaman is keen to break this mould and asks some

fundamental questions about Islamic cultural products, some of them challenging

the very basis of Euro-American traditions of viewing Islamic art. For Leaman, the art

history of Western societies does not treat Islamic art as an opportunity for aestheticexperience but rather as evidence for historical events or religious and social customs.

Leamans enthusiasm for various kinds of Islamic art is often emotional and

imaginative, yet restrained by rational analysis. It clearly demonstrates an aesthetic

response to the various examples of art which he treats. What emerges in this book is

an argument that aesthetic experience can, and should, be liberated from rational

explanation and literal meaning because the experience of beauty has its own rules

that are not necessarily tied in with the art historians way of thinking, which has

more often than not tried to understand Islamic art by relating it to history, religion

and society, rather than trying to understand its innate formal and visual qualities.Leamans first chapter, entitled, Eleven common mistakes about Islamic Art,

clearly outlines the objective of the book: to debunk a number of traditional

misconceptions about Islamic calligraphy, poetry, painting and architecture. He does

this with varying success. One of the first misconceptions he deals with is really a

matter of avoiding the favourite bugbear of recent critical theory, reductionism and

essentialism, especially important because Islam is international and cross-cultural

and is therefore impossible to pigeonhole. Another misconception is the claim that

Islamic aesthetics do not exist, an ethnocentric assumption that has developed

because aesthetics in Islamic societies have not evolved into an explicit canon ofwriting, or as a sub-section of philosophy, as perhaps they have in Europe. This belief is

related to other misconceptions Leaman is keen to counter, that art and aesthetics are

ART HISTORY .ISSN 0141-6790.VOL 29 NO 3. JUNE 2006 pp 503-528& Association of Art Historians 2006. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 5039600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.


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subordinate, or primarily inspired by religious specifically Sufi concerns. This is a

consistent theme that runs through the whole of Leamans book and so it is necessary

to return to this at length in due course. As for other misconceptions, such as the

notion that calligraphy is the highest form of art, that there is an horror vacui in

Islamic art and design practice, or that it is essentially atomistic, or Other, or a minor(decorative) art, Leaman convincingly argues against them in a way that draws in the

reader, hinting at the allure of the aesthetic experience of Islamic art.

It sometimes seems that Leaman is intent on liberating the aesthetic response to

Islamic art from the constraints of being earnest, not only by resisting utilitarian or

functionalist justifications for art but by pleasantly affirming its power to delight. In this,

the author is not far removed from Oscar Wildes seemingly effortless quip that art

should have no purpose. Undoubtedly, there are generations of viewers who have intui-

tively perceived the balance, proportions, visual precision and the lightness of being of

the Taj Mahal and countless millions who have wondered at the brilliance and intricacyof Islamic textiles, metalwork, glass and lustreware, many of whom had no knowledge of

the social or cultural contexts in which these works of art were produced, or had any idea

about the objectives of those who produced them. But this does not detract from the

intensity of the aesthetic experience that these art forms are able to inspire.

Leaman further justifies this almost Romantic approach to understanding

aesthetic experience by undermining the edifice on which many art historians base

their arguments: the known or probable intentions of the artist or patron in the

production of the art object. It does not follow that knowledge of these intentions

should restrict the aesthetic value of the art object, that we must restrict our aestheticsensations to those known to have been experienced in the social or historical contexts

of the art object, that we must see as they saw. It is the necessity of understanding the

art object through the perspective of those who first set eyes on it that Leaman regards

as a kind of fiction and this is what he seeks to remove from the equation. In this, he is

not too different from those inspired by Roland Barthess theory of the death of the

author, with its emphasis on the work and on the reader of the work, not on the

personal, social and political objectives of the author, which can never really be

known. In this way, Leaman appears to view art history, along with religious, Sufi

explanations of art and political and social explanations of art as encumbrances onthe intuitive sensibilities involved in aesthetic experience.

Some of the shortcomings of Leamans iconoclastic approach, which seeks to brush

aside a densely patterned tradition of art-historical writing in favour of a pure and

simple aesthetic reality, surface in some of his detailed criticisms of art-historical

writing. True, the art history of Islamic cultures can be tediously cautious and old

fashioned, with little knowledge of the progress of art history in other fields but its

work in preparing the ground for future development continues. This work consists of

answering important questions of identification, where, when and who produced art

objects: the very basis of art history without which we might still be calling all Islamicart Muhammadan. Islamic art history and its methods are not static and have

progressed. If Leamans target is the art history of Islamic art, his knowledge of this field

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seems oddly dated. Leaman may be accused of setting up a number of straw men. Many

of the works he uses by authors such as Bakhtiar, Critchlow, Golombek, Ettinghausen or

Welch are too old to be cited as examples of the current state of art history. Many ideas

espoused by these authors and used by Leaman to provide his chapter with Eleven

Common Mistakes About Islamic Art are beliefs that are no longer commonly held. Anda number of more up-to-date authors he cites that do have these misconceptions are on

the periphery of Islamic art and cannot be taken to represent the current field.

If Leaman wanted to address the present state of Islamic aesthetics by responding

to art-historical works, he could have consulted a number of standard works that are

more representative of the field. In chapters intricately engaged with arguments

about the perception of geometry in various art forms, he could have used Necipoglus

exemplary work in this area: The Topkapi Scroll.1 In studies in painting, he might have

consulted the work of Lentz and Lowry for Timurid art; or David Roxburgh for prefaces

to albums in Persian painting; or given enough credit to the work of Doris Behrens-Abouseif, some of whose conclusions inBeauty in Arabic Culture prefigure his.2 And as

for the point that Islamic art is too various to be categorized with essential features as

the term denotes the interaction of very broad historical, geographical and interna-

tional scales, this observation was made years ago by Michael Rogers, hardly one of the

new thinkers in the subject area of Islamic art.3 Many of these authors bring out very

complex arguments about aesthetic response that belie Leamans patchy character-

ization of the impoverished objectives of the art history of Islamic cultures.

But sketchy also are Leamans propositions about aesthetic experience, which are

never systematically laid out but rather only implied when demonstrating hisantagonism towards the history of art (and later, the history of philosophy). It is very

easy to say something is beautiful, and to his credit, Leaman states this with aplomb

quite often about Islamic art, but it is much harder to give an account as to why this is

so and reducing the answer to an inexplicable or mysterious subjective experience will

not do. What Leaman tries to do is extend the range of writing about art objects in

Islamic cultures to include the pleasure of viewing colours, experiencing rhythms,

balances and other abstract qualities in art. But anyone who is familiar with exhibi-

tion catalogues and coffee-table books on Mughal artefacts, for example, will know

that these aesthetic responses can easily mutate into circular descriptions. Worse, thereduction of Islamic art to the principle of simple pleasure and appreciation of beauty

can evolve into a kind of scepticism demonstrated by many curators in the field of

Islamic art who have nothing but contempt for religious, social or anthropological

interpretations of the arts of Islamic cultures. This book will no doubt encourage them

to continue resisting diversity in aesthetics. It is not essential that Islamic art, to be

Islamic art, should provoke complex intellectual stimulation, but it often does. One of

the orientalists characterizations of Islamic art, which Leaman does not mention, is

that it reduces its complexity to navete. This has become an excuse for some kinds of

British and American art history to continue to believe that Persian miniaturespossess a childlike innocence and Leamans remarks about instant and uncluttered

aesthetic responses can be used to support this kind of approach.

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For Leaman, thejouissanceof the intricate patterning of kinds of Islamic ornament

lies in its ability to defy description. But one wonders whether the grunt, or any other

monosyllabic expression, is a mark of aesthetic enjoyment or blank ignorance:

presumably it/they can stand for both. Verbal description for Leaman is ugly, as if the

calm beauty of the object, the incomprehensible peace of art is disturbed by vocalintrusion. And this notwithstanding his own description of Islamic patterns which, as

he puts it, sometimes seem to be replete with a libidinal exuberance and sometimes

to be shot through with pathos (68). These poetic sentiments come after a great deal

of debunking of less fanciful remarks about Islamic geometry, those which speak of

stars in the vaults of mosques as comparable to those in heaven, or circles in patterns

that may bring the idea of infinity to mind. Much of Leamans scorn is poured over

the possibility of understanding geometrical patterns as spiritual or religious. And

while it is a fair point that art need not benecessarily a representation of religious or

spiritual sentiments and ideas, it need not be limited to the kind of sensuous orabstract aesthetic experience which the author champions, either. Although he rails

against Sufi interpretations of art, and, to his credit, his knowledge is detailed and

sometimes persuasive, he devotes large parts of the book to explaining different

nuances and shades of Sufi thought (and numerous philosophical ideas), even though

he has made it clear that such considerations are unnecessary in appreciating

examples of Islamic art.

Besides the authors obvious irritation with Sufi dimensions to Islamic art and his

support for more simple (or ordinary, as he puts it) and less learned responses to art

objects, it is possible to glimpse the authors curious assumptions about aesthetics inother ways. A knowledge of post-structuralism, demonstrated by an astute analysis of

calligraphy and Derrida, has not alerted Leaman to the risks of using binary oppositions

to construct a theory of aesthetics: the intellectual versus the intuitive (or sensuous)

aesthetic responses to art; the artificial and the natural in art; and idealism and realism.

The risks associated with such oppositions are that they can be seen to be essentialist

and are easily collapsible. Thus he sets the stage, as it were, for a play about a compe-

tition for beauty between knowledge and the senses. For him, the knowledge of art

scholars and historians comes second place. The viewer who does not take art history

into consideration in viewing the art object is at liberty to do so and this may very wellnot impair his or her aesthetic experience. Leaman is right to state, against a kind of

elitism, that it is not necessary to possess a detailed knowledge of the art object in order

to be apprised of its beauty. But the art historian who does put social and cultural

contexts into play in the consideration of the art object can also appreciate the aesthetic

significance of that object. Knowledge and the senses need not be in opposition.

Both knowledge and the senses come into play in an example of Islamic art that

Leaman discusses at length. His account of the poet Rumis gloss on the intertexual

biblical and Quranic stories of Yusuf (Joseph) and Zulaykha (Potiphars wife) is treated

at several key points in the book. Persian, Turkish or Mughal artists often illustrate thestory of Zulaykha attempting to seduce Yusuf by showing him trying to escape her

touch in a dance-like movement, and they often insert a painting into the background

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showing Yusuf and Zulaykha in a passionate embrace, a kind of false conclusion to the

story, showing Zulaykhas wishful thinking. This brings into play the possibility of the

aesthetic experience of seeing a painting within a painting, a multilayered viewing

process, one that can be seen as both a nave illustration of the story and a parody of

art. The embedded painting in the background visualizes or externalizes Zulaykhasdesire and shows it, at the same time, as an illusion but it can also remind the viewer

that the painting in which this embedded image is enclosed is also an illusion. The

image tells a tale, but it also is a commentary on the dynamics of viewing and the

power of illusions and this intellectual complexity is presumably why it is a scene that

is often chosen for illustration, because it deals both with the nature of sensuous

appreciation of beauty and the contemplation of that appreciation, as it is traditional

to see Zulaykha characterizing the former aesthetic response (seen in the embedded

painting) and Yusuf the latter (shown turning away from her in the foreground). In its

illustrated forms in Persian and Mughal visual art, the story of Yusuf and Zulayka is akind of visual aesthetic treatise where artists relish the opportunity to delight with

the rhythm of line, the subtle gesture, the brilliance of colours and yet they seem

unable also to resist depicting the embedded painting that distances us from the

instantaneous gratification of the senses their art inspires. The work is beautiful in the

way in which it has been painted and in the way it mediates meaning to viewers

familiar with the story, able to delight also in the complexities of representation. The

subtleties of this kind of aesthetic response seemed to have escaped Leaman in his

numerous attempts to explain the story and the painting of the story of Yusuf and

Zulaykha. Simplicity and complexity, the literal and the figurative are possible inaesthetic experience, sometimes in the form of either of these responses and some-

times in a composite sense, where both are experienced at the same time, as in the

foreground or background of a painting. The possibility of the aesthetic experience as

a self-reflexive mechanism, whether simple or complex, reflective of the intellect or

desire, depends on the viewers abilities and inclinations, or whether he or she has

had the opportunity to view the painting several times over many years. In such

circumstances, for the aesthetic experience of colours and forms to be sustained, or

made more intense, knowledge might well have to come to its aid. The aesthetic

response to an art object changes over time but Leaman appears not to be interested inthe gradualism of aesthetic experience.

Another issue that Leamans approach raises is whether art induces aesthetic

responses because of its realism, and its faithfulness to nature, or because of its highly

artificial use of formal qualities and its sense of design. Many will already have seen

that this is a highly artificial conflict, because the two can be present in a work of art

and be seen to cooperate in the aesthetic experience of it. But Leamans explanation

that realism in art reflects an acceptance of the material world, as opposed to a Sufi

denial of the world and the world of the senses is too pat. Leaman, as well as many of

the art historians he criticizes, sees realism in art increasing from the early Timuridperiod to the painting of Bihzad and later to Mughal painting as a result of a new

general interest in and awareness of the physical world. Art is viewed as a march

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towards psychological realism and the more effective recording of historical events,

with increased technical developments in depicting volume and mass. The identifi-

cation of these qualities overshadows the very evident and semantically significant

idealizing elements in different kinds of Islamic art. Emphasis on the historical

accuracy of appearances in painting ignores an aesthetic system built on the subtleidealizing of gesture, symmetry and recognizable patterns of composition. Realism is

not, and never has been, a quantitative matter of more or less, but rather, an extre-

mely subjective perception: some see the illusion more easily than the reality it

purports to represent. It is far from being unequivocally the case that realism in kinds

of Islamic art is simply a result of increased interest in the sense particulars of the

physical world. None of the paintings Leaman describes lack an underlying formal

language and a highly realistic sense of visual organization. Realistic elements are

subordinated to this primary aesthetic. In many cases Islamic painting is never purely

a question of the will to mimesis, or a progressive development of naturalism (asGombrich, for one, characterizes much of Western art), mainly because naturalism

and realism are presented within intelligible patterns of a visual order, an order that

can be intuited as well as studied.

Leamans important contribution to the field of art history is to have opened up

the field to many questions and debates. Particularly important is his attempt to evolve

a sense of aesthetics that takes into account a multiplicity of experiences involved in

viewing art, which art scholars tend to limit, or ignore, in their objective to use art as

evidence for history. Art history should address the various aesthetic dimensions of

intellectual pleasure, emotional fulfilment, sensuous engagement, rational proces-sing, imaginative wandering, self-reflection, the stimulation of memory, or the

interaction of all of these things. But problems appear not only in setting up a hier-

archy of one kind of response over another but in the setting up of the composite

experience over singular or discrete ones. But to go back to the root the work of art

the question is whether it can sustain and inspire this broad range of experiences?

And is this a way of judging the enduring aesthetic power of the art object? Leaman

and many others might very well answer in the affirmative, but would historians of

Islamic art, eager to narrow this range down to an historically accurate set of

measured intentions and responses? The Sufi might add that this argument repre-sents the very heart of aesthetics, its expansion and contraction.

Gregory Minissale

London Metropolitan University

Notes

1 G .ulru Necipoglu, with an essay by Mohammad

al-Asad,The Topkapi Scroll: Geometry and Ornament in

Islamic Architecture, Los Angeles, 1995.2 Doris Behrens-Abouseif, Beauty in Arabic Culture,

Princeton, 1998.

3 J. M. Rogers,The Uses of Anachronism: On Cultural and

Methodological Diversity in Islamic Art, London,

1994.

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