Medieval Islamic objects and the architecture of the mind

Abstract

This review examines the monograph of Margaret Graves, Arts of Allusion, which offers a nuanced argument about visual representation in a disparate group of portable objects dating to between the ninth and thirteenth centuries and created in the heartland of the medieval Islamic world. The study focuses on what Graves calls ‘archimorphic objects’: portable objects that reference architecture in some way, either through their form or ornament. While many studies have pointed to intriguing formal similarities between small objects and monumental buildings in the medieval Islamic tradition, Graves breaks new ground in her exploration of what the allusion to monumental architecture in portable art reveals about the viewers and makers of these objects. Her detailed analyses of numerous objects that were both quotidian and fabulously crafted demonstrates the importance of allusion, metaphor, and other indirect forms of expression to the mechanics of representation in both visual and literary arts in medieval Islamic civilization.

Keywords

• islamic art
• portable art
• ornament
• architecture
• allusion
• metaphor
• material culture