Section: September 21 (No Class)/ Make-up Class September 23: The Arabesque | Topics in Material Culture - bmc.HART.B640.001.F26

Section outline

- Select activity Reading Response #1: Due Sunday September 20 5 PM
  
  Reading Response #1: Due Sunday September 20 5 PM Assignment
  
  Opened: Tuesday, September 1, 2026, 12:00 AM
  
  Due: Sunday, September 20, 2026, 5:00 PM
  
  What associations with the idea of “ornament” did you start the readings with?
  
  What do we learn about the place of ornament in histories of art from this cluster of texts? What were some arguments or claims that surprised or intrigued you?
  
  How might you characterize the conversation that is occurring between these readings? Many of the authors for this week are historians of Islamic art – how do they characterize the position of ornament in discussions of Islamic art history? How might the authors’ positions and the dates of their publications, contexts of production, and intended audiences have shaped these various accounts of ornament?
- Select activity Blair, Sheila S. and Bloom, Jonathan M. “Ornament and Islamic Art,” Cosmophilia: Islamic Art from the David Collection, Copenhagen. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.
  
  Blair, Sheila S. and Bloom, Jonathan M. “Ornament and Islamic Art,” Cosmophilia: Islamic Art from the David Collection, Copenhagen. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. File
  
  Students must
  
  Mark as done
- Select activity **Necipoğlu, Gülru, “Part 2: The Discourse on the Geometric Arabesque” in The Topkapı Scroll – Geometry and Ornament in Islamic Architecture (Santa Monica: The Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1995): 61-83.
  
  **Necipoğlu, Gülru, “Part 2: The Discourse on the Geometric Arabesque” in The Topkapı Scroll – Geometry and Ornament in Islamic Architecture (Santa Monica: The Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1995): 61-83. File
  
  Students must
  
  Mark as done
  
  This is a dense reading - try to trace and highlight the author's comments about the scholars and readings that we are doing for this week (Riegl, Ettinghausen, and Herzfeld) and also read carefully the analysis of Owen Jones's The Grammar of Ornament. Do not worry about the taking note of each scholarly work that is discussed; rather, try to trace the broader argument about how scholarship on the "arabesque" has developed and changed over time.
- Select activity Alois Riegl, INTRODUCTION -Stilfragen: Grundlegungen zu einer Geschichte der Ornamentik (1893), excerpt from the translation: Problems of Style: Foundations for a History of Ornament, trans. Evelyn Kain (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 3-13 and 48-53.
  
  Alois Riegl, INTRODUCTION -Stilfragen: Grundlegungen zu einer Geschichte der Ornamentik (1893), excerpt from the translation: Problems of Style: Foundations for a History of Ornament, trans. Evelyn Kain (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 3-13 and 48-53. File PDF
  
  708.4 KB · Uploaded 08/27/26, 14:57
- Select activity Riegl, Alois. “The Arabesque” Problems of Style: foundations for a history of ornament, tr. by Evelyn Kain (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992)
  
  Riegl, Alois. “The Arabesque” Problems of Style: foundations for a history of ornament, tr. by Evelyn Kain (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992) File
  
  Students must
  
  Mark as done
  
  Focus in particular on the motivation for this argument (p. 234) and on the description of the "infinite rapport" (pp. 272-281).
- Select activity Ettinghausen, Richard. “The Taming of the Horror Vacui in Islamic Art”
  
  Ettinghausen, Richard. “The Taming of the Horror Vacui in Islamic Art” File
  
  Students must
  
  Mark as done
- Select activity Labrusse, Rémi, “What remains belongs to God' : Henri Matisse, Alois Riegl, and the arts of Islam” in Matisse, his art and his textiles : the fabric of dreams (Royal Academy of Arts, 2004), 46-61
  
  Labrusse, Rémi, “What remains belongs to God' : Henri Matisse, Alois Riegl, and the arts of Islam” in Matisse, his art and his textiles : the fabric of dreams (Royal Academy of Arts, 2004), 46-61 File PDF
  
  2.4 MB · Uploaded 08/30/26, 23:01
- Select activity David Pullins, "Objects and the Arabesque" in The Mobile Image (Getty, 2024)
  
  David Pullins, "Objects and the Arabesque" in The Mobile Image (Getty, 2024) File PDF
  
  5.7 MB · Uploaded 08/28/26, 11:22
- Select activity Further reading
  
  Students must
  
  Mark as done
  
  Further reading