WENDY M. K. SHAW

BETWEEN RELIGION

AND PERCEPTION

WHAT IS

“ISLAMIC”

ART?

9781108474658: Shaw: PPC:

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SHAW

WHAT IS “ISLAMIC” ART?

“This book is exactly what art history needs when it attempts to think about

Islamic art. Instead of asking what properties make an image Islamic, this

book asks, what is an image in Islam? When art history begins to understand

its secularism, concepts like art, image, vision, matter, and history necessarily

change. Shaw gives us a different perceptual culture, one that begins from

Islamic discourses, and gradually becomes visible as art and history. It is the first

book of its kind, and I hope there will be many more.”

JAMES ELKINS, SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE, CHICAGO

“By questioning the primacy of the art object and placing the experience of

perception at center stage, Shaw challenges a number of paradigms within the

field of art history. In this master stroke of scholarship, she pries open the affective

and aesthetic landscapes of pre-modern Islamic cultures, untethered from any

single-point perspective and reenchanted by the soaring poesis of her prose.”

CHRISTIANE GRUBER, PROFESSOR OF ISLAMIC ART,

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

“A question that may seem simple, but behind that door is the history of

everything – the shape of thought, the logic of imagination, the cradle of taste.

Creative, sophisticated, fluent, and spirited, Shaw paints in the rich landscape

that gives meaning to self and other.”

VICTORIA ROWE HOLBROOK, ISTANBUL BILGI UNIVERSITY

“A radical rethinking of modern art history and the secular terms of Islamic art

history. Stepping out of the perspectival frame, this marvelous book not only

unpacks a vibrant Islamic perceptual culture thriving on sensation and mimesis

but also imagines the possibility of studying art from a de-colonial angle.

An amazing tour de force revealing an alternate approach to art!”

BIRGIT MEYER, PROFESSOR OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES,

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY

Cover illustration: Friday Mosque, Yazd, Iran.

Marka / Getty images.

Cover design: Andrew Ward