A Twenty-Year Retrospect on ‘The Mirage of Islamic Art’: Polarising Islamic art, consolidating Persian art

Abstract

This introductory essay overviews the state of scholarship and controversies in the field of Islamic art, in tandem with the gradual reappraisal of Persian art, from around 2000 to the present. By surveying twenty-year debates concerning the academic and display genre called ‘Islamic art’, as well as the reformulating process of the art historical concept ‘Persian art’, this essay seeks an alternative pathway to put several contentious debates concerning art history in general and Persian art in particular into fruitful discussion.

Keywords

• islamic art
• persian art
• periodisation
• decolonial scholarship
• critical museology