The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and private collections related to a mystical branch of Islam known as Sufism. While differing Muslim sects and diverse nationalities of the Islamic world may not always share a single religious or cultural ideology, the mystical and romantic aspects of Sufism tend to appeal to a global audience. Inspired by Sufi ideologies and the poetry of celebrated mystics such as al-Ghazzali (d. 1111) and Jalal al-Din Rumi (d. 1273), artists from the medieval Islamic period through the present day have produced works of art ranging from ceramic and metal wares to illustrated manuscripts and photographs.

This thesis is a compilation of essays on topics concerning Japanese lacquer art of the period 1890-1950, each based on the study of objects and the literature. The essays are grouped into two clusters: the first one focussing on four leading artists of the period and the second one on the manufacturers of traditional utensils. For a better understanding, the clusters are preceded by an overview on the developments in lacquer art between 1850 and 1950. The closing chapter on storage boxes can be considered a by-product of the previous studies.

The payer-book Dala’il al-Khayrat by the Moroccan mystical activist Abu Abdallah Muhammad b. Sulayman al-Jazuli (d. 870/1465) is one of the most successful books in Sunni Islam, after the Qur’an itself. It is known from the Islamic West, where it was written more than five hundred years ago, till far in South-East Asia, and everywhere in between. There must be many thousands of manuscripts of it all over the world, and many hundreds in printed versions. The numerous editions which are currently available in the entire Islamic world prove that the book has lost nothing of its appeal. Most manuscripts and all printed editions of the Dala’il al-Khayrat are provided with two illustrations, showing either elements of the Prophet’s Mosque or views of the Great Mosque of Mekka and the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina. Why these illustrations came to be inserted into al-Jazuli’s prayer-book in the first place, and how they changed from one representation into another is the subject of the present paper.

Generally speaking, paintings of the human figure in early Islam can tentatively be divided into two main phases. The first cover the Umayyad and early Abbasid era between the late seventh and tenth century; the second begins in the late tenth or early eleventh century, covers Fatimed art in Egypt, and culminates in the late-twelfth to mid-thirteenth-century paintings in Mesopotamia. The two periods differ stylistically and ichnographically, but they also share some common sources that are reflected not only in the style of the figures, but also in the themes in which they appeared.

Numerous objects are mentioned in the Sejarah Melayu or Malay Annals, a semi-historical account of the Malacca sultants, thei ancestors, and their descendents, first written in 1482 by a Johore prince, Raja Bongsu, also known as Tun Sri Lanang. The objects include textiles, weapons, metalwork, furniture, musical instruments, tombstones, vessels, buildings, gardens and fortifications.

A number of painters and calligraphers trained in Iran made important contributions to book production and book illustration in Mughal India. Here the careers of three of them, Mir Ali al-Harvari (ca. 1476-1545), Abd al-Samad Shirazi (ca. 1518 – ca. 1600), and Aqa Riza al-Haravi (fl. 1580-1608) will be examined. Documentation of their contributions will be supplemented by a more general survey of the artistic connections that existed between Iran and Mughal India.

The recent surge in publications dealing with European art on Islamic themes, especially the work of Orientalist painters of the nineteenth century, is a part of a general reappraisal of nineteenth century academic art occurring in our time, dually reflected in scholarly research and in the art market, and often showing the effect of the latter on the former. This dual interest has resulted in turn in a significant number of sumptuous new publications, often with many color illustrations. These books and catalogues have sought to appeal variously to the marketplace, to serious scholarship and to range a range of other interests from the hotly political to the mildly prurient.

The makara is one of the many images of foreign origin which entered the Chinese artistic vocabulary through cultural exchanges over the centuries. Its persistence through time-attested as it is on different classes of artifacts from the sixth to the eighteenth century-its adaptation to different media, and the iconographical changes it underwent in China make it an interesting case study. In the literature in Western languages, however, the motif has rarely been the subject of specific studies, though a number of scholars have pointed out its occurrence in discussing particular artifacts.

A rare masterpiece in the Seattle Art Museum’s collection, Poem Scroll with Deer (known as Deer Scroll) was created by two prominent artists: calligrapher Hon’ami Kōetsu and painter Tawaraya Sōtatsu. On seventy-two feet of paper, Sōtatsu used gold and silver pigments to depict deer in various poses, jumping, standing, alone, in a crowd or calling out to each other. He also decorated the reverse side with square-shaped gold and silver leaves.

The scroll just came back from Japan after extensive restorative work. Although the handscroll itself does not bear any title, it is generally known as the Deer Scroll because the entire scroll is filled with images of deer, which are shown either singly, in couples, or in large herds. The animals are painted only in gold and/or silver ink, as is the very simple setting of sky, mist, and ground. As you may have noticed, these beautiful pictures of deer are really a background for the equally exquisite writings of waka poems in black ink. Here we have a symphony of three arts - poetry, painting, and calligraphy - as a testimonial to the ancient credo of Asia that these three arts occupy an equally important place in life and culture.