Islamic Luxury Arts
By the end of this module you will be able to:
- Identify and describe the form, content, and context of key Islamic Luxury Arts works
- Define critical terms related to Islamic Luxury Arts
- Describe the art of Islamic glass
- Discuss how developments such as tin-opacified glazing and stone paste ceramics made Islamic ceramics some of the most advanced of their time
- Explain the making and significance of Islamic textiles
Islamic Glass
For most of the Middle Ages, Islamic luxury glass was the most sophisticated in Eurasia, exported to both Europe and China. Islam took over much of the traditional glass-producing territory of Sassanian and Ancient Roman glass. Since figurative decoration played a small part in pre-Islamic glass, the change in style was not abrupt—except that the whole area initially formed a political whole, and, for example, Persian innovations were now almost immediately taken up in Egypt.
For this reason, it is often impossible to distinguish between the various centers of production (of which Egypt, Syria, and Persia were the most important), except by scientific analysis of the material, which itself has difficulties. From various documentary references, glassmaking and glass-trading seem to have been a specialty of the Jewish minority.
Between the 8th and early 11th centuries, the emphasis on luxury glass was specifically on the effects achieved by manipulating the surface of the glass, initially by incising into the glass on a wheel, and later by cutting away the background to leave a design in relief. The very massive Hedwig glasses only found in Europe, but normally considered Islamic (or possibly from Muslim craftsmen in Norman Sicily), are an example of this, though they are puzzlingly late in date.
These and other glass pieces probably represented cheaper versions of vessels of carved rock crystal (clear quartz)—themselves influenced by earlier glass vessels—and there is some evidence that at this period glass and hard-stone cutting were regarded as the same craft. From the 12th century, the glass industry in Persia and Mesopotamia declined, and the main production of luxury glass shifted to Egypt and Syria. Throughout this period, local centers made simpler wares, such as Hebron glass in Palestine.
Lustre painting
Lustre painting, by techniques similar to lustreware in pottery, dates back to the 8th century in Egypt and involves the application of metallic pigments during the glass-making process. Another technique used by artisans was decoration with threads of glass of a different colour, worked into the main surface, and sometimes manipulated by combing and other effects.
Gilded, painted, and enamelled glass was added to the repertoire, as were shapes and motifs borrowed from other media, such as pottery and metalwork. Some of the finest work was in mosque lamps donated by a ruler or wealthy man.
As decoration grew more elaborate, the quality of the basic glass decreased, and it often exhibite