absent object. It thereby precludes inward mimesis, in which the object
touches the heart of the subject. Similarly, demonstrative language alone
fails to communicate, and requires the allegorical communication made
possible in narrative. Thus a secular, demonstrative art history that relies
on information to reveal the truth of Islamic art veils its conceptual heart
by occluding the subjective interpretation of parable and poetry.
The idea of the image in Islam does not require the external, material
object necessary for art-historical analysis. Rather, the trope of the image
emphasizes spiritually trained subjectivity. This resonates with the Quranic
understanding of subjectivity as rooted in the heart, inverting the ration-
alist assumption that a thing precedes its image, and instead recognizing
the image as real through the subjectivity of the perceiving agent. Yet far
from immaterial, this inversion requires physicality to perform the unseen,
sometimes transcendent and sometimes transgressive, in the space of
dreams, visions, and disappearing realities.
The Competition between Zeuxis and Parrhasius 183