Medieval architecture spain11/6/2023 ![]() The lavishly illustrated essays and catalogue entries present the full spectrum of the art of al-Andalus: intricately carved ivories, metalwork, and ceramics, luxurious textiles, jewelry, arms, marble capitals, stucco panels, and tiles, as well as major monuments of religious and secular architecture such as the Great Mosque of Córdoba, the palace city of Madinat al-Zahra, and the Alhambra. Most of the art and architecture that remains from Islamic Spain was produced for palatine settings and aristocratic patrons representing, as these works do, almost eight centuries of history, they issue from diverse rules and traditions. A significant achievement of this volume, in fact, is that it brings together American and European scholars, two groups that until now have worked largely in isolation from each other. Toward this end, twenty-four international scholars have contributed a wide-ranging series of essays and catalogue entries in which the art, architecture, and cultural climate of al-Andalus are approached from a broad variety of perspectives. Although a small group of scholars pursued the serious study of the arts of Islamic Spain, these arts have for the most part been viewed as brilliant and exotic vestiges of a lost culture, as objects and monuments that left no mark on European tradition.Ī goal of this book, the first publication in over forty years to study the art and architecture of al-Andalus in depth, is to reveal the value of these arts as part of an autonomous culture and also as a presence with deep significance for both Europe and the Islamic world. Physical remoteness gave al-Andalus a privileged place in medieval myths but also separated it from the communities of the east and the west, so that it received only sporadic attention from both worlds. Floating on the western edge of the Mediterranean, cut off from the European continent by jagged mountains, it was geographically isolated from both North Africa and Europe, from Islamic as well as Christian lands. From 711 to 1492 al-Andalus was the occidental frontier of Islam. This volume, which accompanies a major exhibition presented at the Alhambra in Granada and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, is devoted to the little-known artistic legacy of Islamic Spain. Although the borders of al-Andalus shifted over the centuries, the Muslims remained a powerful force on the peninsula for almost eight hundred years, until 1492, when they were expelled by Ferdinand and Isabella. ![]() In less than a decade the Muslims brought most of the peninsula under their domination they called the Iberian lands they controlled al-Andalus. In 711 an army of Arabs and Berbers from North Africa, united by their faith in Islam, crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and arrived on the Iberian Peninsula.
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