Archiv

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  The Idea of the Just Ruler in Persianate Art and Material Culture

  Bd. 5 (2023)

  Iranian kings, or those who reigned in lands under Persian linguistic and cultural domination, followed the idea of a Just Ruler: a pious king who looked after his subjects’ divinity and spirituality in parallel to their earthly lives and needs. The Just Ruler extended righteousness and peace among his people while patronizing the construction of palaces, gardens, and new towns. The idea of a Just Ruler may be found in Sassanid monumental rock reliefs and written texts and then enriched and elaborated upon in the Islamic era by philosophers, poets, authors, and artists.

  This issue of Manazir Journal focuses on how art and architecture served the representation of the Just Ruler in Persianate societies from Central Asia to Eastern Anatolia from the 14th to the 19th centuries. Illustrated books, architecture, and photography show how different kings and rulers referred to the Persian ideas of the Just Ruler by patronizing new constructions, richly illuminated books, and in the modern era, employing mediums such as photography and lithography for nationalizing the king’s image.

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  Ce que l’art fait à la ville en Afrique du Nord et au Moyen-Orient. Pratiques artistiques, expressions du politique et transformations de l’espace public

  Bd. 4 (2022)

  The fourth issue of Manazir Journal focuses on “making art” in urban public space in North Africa and the Middle East. Whether visual or performative, these urban arts (tags, graffiti, street art, murals, performances, live shows, sculptures and installations) contribute to renewing forms of expression of politics in public space and, more broadly, to transforming urban space. Indeed, the graffiti and street art scene has accelerated over the past decade in line with the so-called “Arab Spring”: every year, graffiti on walls multiply, new urban art centers appear, and festivals entirely dedicated to street art are organized. All these initiatives are gradually turning the city into an “open-air gallery” and are transforming the relationship between city dwellers and urban public space. While many scholarly works have begun to take an interest in artistic practices in the MENA region, few of them have explored their urban dimensions. By asking what art does to the city, the contributions in this issue question the renewal of the links between art, modes of appropriation of urban space, and forms of political expression.

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  Geometry and Color. Decoding the Arts of Islam in the West from the Mid-19th to the Early 20th Century

  Bd. 3 (2021)

  The art and architecture of the Islamic world had a decisive impact on the development of decorative and fine arts from 1880 to 1945. Many leading artists and architects took inspiration from the rich Islamic language of forms and ornamentation. They were fascinated by the mathematical principles and unusual harmonies of colors in Persian miniatures and rugs, stained glass windows or Iznik tiles, and punched metal works and ceramics from the Near East, North Africa and Moorish Spain. While only some of them actually visited the Islamic world and studied its art and architecture in situ, many discovered it through exhibitions and publications. Following on from Paris (1893/1903), Stockholm (1897) and Algiers (1905), Munich set new standards in 1910 with the exhibition “Meisterwerke muhammedanischer Kunst” (“Masterpieces of Muhammadan Art”). Museums, art dealers and private collectors from a number of countries contributed some 3,600 works, including valuable carpets, ceramics, metalwork pieces and Persian miniatures. The exhibition marked a turning point not only for the academic studies of the time, but also in terms of the reception of Islamic arts. In the Western fine and decorative arts of the 19th century, the “Orient” conjured up motivic imagery heavily influenced by the colonialist perspective, whereas the artists of early Modernism investigated Islam’s stylistic devices in depth, transposing them to their own environment through a process of artistic internalization. In combination with their own traditions and their respective times, it was this very internalisation that instilled motivating creative processes, out of which artists developed countless new forms of expression.

  The contributions in this volume approach these questions from different perspectives, considering theoretical and practical applications developed by western artists, architects and decorators and how Islamic art was considered as a model for the renewal of European arts at the turn of the twentieth century. 

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  Circulations et trajectoires artistiques entre le Nord de l’Afrique et la France (XIXe-XXe s.)

  Bd. 2 (2020)

  Depuis le XIX^esiècle, le Nord de l’Afrique, de l’Égypte au Maroc, a connu de profonds bouleversements, liés à l’expansion impériale et coloniale des puissances européennes et à la politique de ré-ordonnancement (tanzimāt) de l’Empire ottoman, puis au processus de décolonisation et à l’affirmation d’États-nations. Ces mutations qui furent à la fois économiques, sociales, politiques et culturelles s’accompagnèrent de références à des modèles européens. C’est plus précisément aux références à des œuvres ou plus généralement à une culture française dans les productions locales que nous entendons consacrer ce dossier, en nous attachant à comprendre leurs modalités. Le contact avec la France a pris des formes différentes. En Égypte, après l’épisode de l’occupation française entre 1798 et 1801 et la forte présence des conseillers français dans la politique de réforme de l’État menée par Méhémet Ali, la culture française a pu représenter une forme de contestation par rapport à la présence britannique après 1881. En Algérie, la France a pris le contrôle du pays par les armes, et encouragé une colonisation de peuplement accompagnée d’un discours assimilationniste. Les protectorats français en Tunisie et au Maroc ont pu favoriser le développement d’une image ambivalente de la France, tutrice favorisant un processus de développement spécifique ou puissance abusive l’étouffant, et devant prendre en considération des modèles étrangers concurrents, italien en Tunisie ou espagnol au Maroc.

  Dans le domaine des arts, les références explicites à la France ou les transferts culturels implicites ont pris des formes nombreuses et variées. On s’intéressera ici aux expressions d’une ouverture à des références françaises aussi bien à des formes de réaction ou de refus devant des modèles présentés comme étrangers ou imposés par la force, dans différentes formes de productions artistiques, arts visuels mais aussi musique, pour y étudier les modes d’appropriation, de mise en question et de compréhension.

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  The Arab Apocalypse. Art, Abstraction & Activism in the Middle East

  Bd. 1 (2019)

  This first issue of Manazir Journal originates in the exhibition dedicated to the Lebanese-American artist, poet and writer Etel Adnan held at the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern in 2018 and the related symposium. It illustrates how artists, in the Arab world, connected abstraction and political activism, in a search that ties visual aspects to clearly expressed opinions and visions of and on this region. The title refers to Adnan's well-known epic poem "The Arab Apocalypse" which she wrote during the Lebanese civil war.