8 / Writing
| Artist / Origin |
Unknown artist, attr. to Spain
Region: Europe
|
|---|---|
| Date |
13th–14th century
Period: 1000 CE - 1400 CE
|
| Material | Ink, colors, and gold on vellum |
| Dimensions | H: 21 1/16 in. (53.5 cm.), W: 22 in. (55.9 cm.) |
| Location | The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY |
| Credit | Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund |
expert perspective
| Adriana ProserCurator of Traditional Asian Art, Asia Society |
expert perspective
Adriana Proser
Curator of Traditional Asian Art, Asia Society
“backTraditionally, the way a student of Islamic calligraphy would have studied would have been with a master. And after years and years of practicing, ultimately, a student is awarded a certificate and then can practice as a professional.
There are many numbers of different script types that a student needs to master first before they can actually go out on their own as a professional calligrapher. This is true in the Islamic world and true in the East Asian world as well that once you get to the point that you have really mastered a number of scripts, you mastered the styles of great calligraphers, then you’re at a point that maybe you can go out and create something out of your own. There are a number of existing standard kinds of scripts. When they become skilled enough calligraphers can actually play around with those and come up with hybrid styles that mix different elements from different places.
In the Islamic world, calligraphy is considered the highest form of art. It’s tied to the writing of the Qur’an; it’s tied to the fact that it’s a transcription of the word of God. It’s so full of the spiritual power and embellishing it in this way is a way of celebrating it. The Qur’an is a document that tends to be chanted. So in a way it really does have a musical quality to it and the calligrapher is trying to capture that sense of the spoken word of God.
One Qur’an would, in its totality, have been written by one calligrapher. It was considered an incredible act of piety to write out a whole Qur’an. It’s such an incredibly rich tradition. It’s certainly an art form that if you don’t understand it and you see it, you can still appreciate it as an abstract art. But it’s so deep in terms of the meaning and the history and what’s going on underneath those strokes or what’s entailed in the creation of those strokes.”