{"id":26,"date":"2016-05-05T01:50:47","date_gmt":"2016-05-05T01:50:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/allahmahaba\/?page_id=26"},"modified":"2016-05-11T03:53:30","modified_gmt":"2016-05-11T03:53:30","slug":"blog-1-stoicism-versus-modernity","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/allahmahaba\/blog-1-stoicism-versus-modernity\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog 1: Stoicism versus Modernity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mixed media. Geometric design, conflict between static and evolving spirituality.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"IMG_1261\"<\/p>\n

This mixed media work describes the academic debate about the role of Islamic art. A professor and philosopher of Islamic studies at George Washington University, Dr. Seyyed Nasr holds that Islamic art is a product of Islamic spirituality and that religious consciousness inspires the creation and appreciation of Islamic art (Nasr 5). The spiritual connection that one experiences when appreciating Islamic art embodies the concept of tawhid<\/em>, the \u201cacknowledgement and assertion of God\u2019s uncompromised unity and transcendence\u201d in all parts of life (Renard 128). In fact, an understanding of the \u201cinner meaning\u201d of Islamic art necessitates both \u201c\u2019outward and inner discover[ies] of truth\u2019\u201d according to Nasr (Necipo\u011flu 77). On the other hand, Harvard Professor Dr. G\u00fclru Necipo\u011flu believes that Islamic art actually changes with context (Necipo\u011flu 77).<\/p>\n

In this work, a woman stands to the left of the canvas and a geometric art pattern fills the background (the same pattern as the header for this blog). The woman\u2019s left side is clearly defined and delineated, representing the static notion of spirituality. The image of the woman is less defined on the right side as she fades into the history. The lack of definition on the right side represents the change in Islamic art over time as social contexts change the interpretation of the art.<\/p>\n

Originally I decided to use a woman to depict this concept because I thought I could more easily demonstrate the fading through the hair and dress. However, as we learned in class, women\u2019s bodies have often functioned as arenas for ideological battles surrounding identity and ideology [1].<\/p>\n

I originally painted this piece so that the woman stood to the right of the canvas so that the past faded toward the left. To me this represented the chronologic linearity of a timeline. However, I eventually horizontally flipped the image to reflect the nature of the Arabic language, which is written from right-to-left. The painting is mounted on a newspaper with current affairs at Harvard in 2016.<\/p>\n

[1] From lecture notes April 5, 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mixed media. Geometric design, conflict between static and evolving spirituality. This mixed media work describes the academic debate about the role of Islamic art. A professor and philosopher of Islamic studies at George Washington University, Dr. Seyyed Nasr holds that Islamic art is a product of Islamic spirituality and that religious consciousness inspires the creation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7992,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-26","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","post-preview"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P7vGmx-q","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/allahmahaba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/26","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/allahmahaba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/allahmahaba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/allahmahaba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7992"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/allahmahaba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/allahmahaba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/26\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/allahmahaba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/26\/revisions\/61"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/allahmahaba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}