Islamic & Indian Arts of the Book: The Art of Writing in Islamic Art

Writing in Arabic script is one of the hallmarks of Islamic art, found on all sorts of objects from the humblest to the fanciest made in a wide range of materials from earliest times to the present across the lands where Islam was a major religion. Shelia Blair, the Norma Jean Calderwood Chair of Islamic Art and Asian Art at Boston College, will survey some of the ways that artists used and embellished script to decorate buildings and objects for both religious and secular purposes. Presented in conjunction with Islamic and Indian Arts of the Book: Conservation & Context, a professional development workshop for conservators that will focus on the long term preservation and exhibition of the arts of the book from both the Islamic and South Asian traditions.
Brown Auditorium | Free, no reservations | View full schedule
The workshop is funded by the FAIC Endowment for Professional Development, which is supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and by contributions from members and friends of the (AIC) American Institute for Conservation of Historic & Artistic Works and the Art of the Middle East Council.
Image: (Detail) Timur Receiving Gifts from the Egyptian Ambassadors, left half of a double-page composition from a manuscript of the Zafarnama of Sharaf al-Din ‘Ali Yazdi, Iran, Shiraz, AH Dhu’l-Hijja 839/July 15–16, 1436, ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper. Worcester Art Museum (1935.26). Photo © Museum Associates\LACMA.