The Human Figure in Early Islamic Art: Some Preliminary Remarks Author(s): Eva Baer Source: Muqarnas, Vol.

16 (1999), pp. 32-41 Published by: BRILL Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1523264 Accessed: 10/09/2010 16:37
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EVA BAER

THE HUMAN FIGURE IN EARLYISLAMICART: SOME PRELIMINARY REMARKS

The following lines are a concise summary of a larger project on the development of the human figure in the arts of Islam from its very beginning in Syria and Egypt to about the sixteenth century in Iran and Central Asia. The present notes are therefore preliminary; they require further refinement and probably some elaboration of particular points not touched upon here. Generally speaking, paintings of the human figure in early Islam can tentatively be divided into two main phases. The first covers the Umayyad and early Abbasid era between the late seventh and tenth century; the second begins in the late tenth or the early eleventh century, covers Fatimid art in Egypt, and culminates in the late-twelfth- to mid-thirteenth-century paintings in Mesopotamia. The two periods differ stylistically and iconographically, 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. It is common knowledge, and need not to be reiterated, that Umayyad and early Abbasid artists were still in quest of a vocabulary that suited the requirements of Islamic society. The language they used therefore primarily reflected Sasanian and Greco-Roman conventions. From the Sasanian tradition they inherited the frequent representations of royalty, royal entourages, and favorite royal pastimes. They also inherited from them the desire to demonstrate visually the continuity of their princely lineage by painting the "portraits" of their kings on the walls of their royal residences. Indeed, Muslim historians and geographers claim to have seen wall paintings in the form of "picture galleries" of the Sasanian kings and Persian annals with pictures of these kings. In 915, for example, Mas'udi claims to have seen in the house of a notable of Istakhr a precious manuscript which contained portraits of twenty-five Persian kings and two queens, beginning with Ardashir and ending with Yazdegird. These portraits, Mas'udi claims, had been made at the death of each monarch, and stored in the archives of royal picture galleries. The author adds that the Umayyad caliph Hisham (727-43) had ordered an Arabic translation made of this work. Mas'udi does not say whether the pictures were also copied onto the translation of the text, but he describes these kings with all their garments and attributes, and even mentions their poses and gestures.' We also learn

Fig. 1. Bas relief with Shapur II enthroned. Bishapur, 309379. In situ. (Photo: from R. Girschman, Iran, Parthiansand Sassanians [London, 1962], p. 184)

THE HUMAN

FIGURE IN EARLY ISLAMIC ART

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Fig. 3. Coin of YazdegardIII. Struck in A.D. 633. Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, Cabinet des Medailles, no. 921. (Photo:
from R. Girschman, Iran, Parthians and Sassanians [London,

1962], p. 251)

Fig. 2. Rock crystal medallion with effigy of KhusrawI. 6th century or later. Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, Cabinet des Medailles, no. 2358. (Photo: from R. Girschman, Iran, Parthians and Sassanians [London, 1962], p. 205)

from Firdawsi that the palace of Mahmud of Ghazna was decorated with "portraits" of the kings and heroes of Iran and Turan, and many more examples could be cited. So far no traces of such wall paintings or manuscripts have come to light. But princely effigies made in Umayyad and Abbasid times after Sasanian models are preserved in official art, such as coins and medals, as well as in other media (figs. 1-2), including floor paintings and sculpture.2 They all have one thing in common, and that is that they are based on an idealized type of Sasanian king and show no likeness to the person they are supposed to represent (figs. 3-4). Equally well documented are human effigies based on Greco-Roman or late-antique models. One has only to recall the bas relief of the reclining woman at Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi; or the hunting and other scenes of royal entertainment; or the so-called Fortuna; or the naked woman in an aedicule on the wall paint-

Fig. 4. Gold medal with effigy of 'Adud al-Dawlah. Tehran, Private Collection. (Photo: from M. Bahrami, "AGold Medal
in the Freer Gallery of Art," Archaeologia orientalia in Memoriam

Ernst Herzfeld[Locust Valley, N.Y., 1952], pl. 1, 2b)

34

EVA BAER

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Fig. 5. Female dancer. Coptic textile, ca. 7th century. Bern,
Abegg-Stiftung. (Photo: AbeggStiftung Bern in Riggisberg [1973],

Fig. 6. Fragment of female sculpture from Mshatta. Berlin, Staatliche Museen ffir Islamische Kunst, no.J 6172. (Photo: courtesy Staatliche Museen fuir Islamische Kunst, Berlin)

p. 4) ings at Qusayr 'Amra.3 Both the Fortuna and the woman in the aedicule recall Faiyum or Antinoe portraits, which in style, costume, and facial shape are Roman, and supposedly were copied by Romans living in the Egyptian hinterland. By the same token the female dancers at Qusayr 'Amra reflect dancing women on Coptic textiles (fig. 5) which, like the painted or carved dancers in Fatimid Egypt, were designed in Egypto-Roman style.4 The artistic traditions behind these works of artbe they late Roman or Sasanian-must also have apto the taste of early Islamic society. This is pealed particularly evident if we compare pre-Islamic with eighth-century early Islamic representations of the female body which, following a common ideal canon of beauty, had to be voluptuous, with full breasts, fleshy buttocks, and sloping hips. Take, for instance, the late Roman figure of Artemis in a mid-third-century mosaic emblem from Shahba-Philippopolis, or the representation of Aphrodite in another mosaic from the same site, but dated about a century later. In both mosaics the concentrically placed tesserae clearly accentuate the bosom and belly, as well as the fat hip and thigh of these goddesses.5 By the same token, some of the Sasanian nudes or semi-nudes, like the harpist in the mosaics of Bishapur, or a female dancer on one of the boat-shaped silver bowls, reveal similar characteristics.6 In concept they, too, are closely related to the fragmentary stone sculptures of Mshatta (now in Berlin and Amman) (fig. 6), or to the female stucco sculptures at Khirbat al-Mafjar.7 Whether the latter follow Central Asian or Indian prototypes, as has sometimes been argued, is not rel-

THE HUMAN

FIGURE IN EARLY ISLAMIC ART

35

Fig. 7. Fatimid luster plate with cock fight. 11th century. Keir Collection Painting and the Arts of the Book [London, 1976]).

no. 88. (Photo: from B. W. Robinson, ed., Islamic

evant here, and in any case is questionable. Their importance lies in the fact that they responded to the idea of female beauty in the new Islamic society, and reflected the taste of the patron who commissioned them. In the first phase, roughly outlined above, the

images were related in one way or another to the ruler, and showed either his effigy, his entourage and members of his harem, or various aspects of royal pastimes. In the second phase, beginning towards the end of the tenth century, the range of human imagery widened. Although the preference for princely

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imagery remained, Fatimid artists, followed by Mesopotamian painters in the later twelfth and thirteenth century, also included people from the lower social orders in their repertoire. This change, which some scholars have connected to the rising bourgeoisie but which has never been studied in depth, brought about a new attitude towards the human figure, which, as we shall see below, occasionally even led to caricature. Early evidence for this new attitude is provided by some Fatimid ceramics, which depict scenes of popular entertainment, like the cock fight (fig. 7) depicted on an eleventh-century luster-painted bowl in the Keir Collection (no. 88). The two performers, apparently a man and an eunuch with a fattish, effeminate face, hold the cocks in preparation for the fight, and seem to examine each other with looks so hostile that it appears to be they, and not the cocks,

who are the rivals. Or take the two men in a mock fight with staves (Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo, no. 14516), or the wrestlers (fig. 8) who, accompanied by a trainer and what seems to be an audience, are full of movement and action expressing physical strain and individuality-traits totally missing from the images of princely or royal status.8 This new trend in Fatimid Egypt is given its final expression in early- to mid-thirteenth-century paintings in Mesopotamia. The most obvious examples come from the so-called Schefer Hariri (dated 634 [1237]). Take, for instance, the sleeping travelers in the miniature of a caravan at rest, in Paris, BN 5847 (fol. 9: fig. 9), whose completely relaxed poses and closed eyes are so realistic that they appear to be the result of the artist's actual observation of tired men having a good night's rest. The groom, who sits next to the camels, even has caricature-like features. Another example of this new

THE HUMAN

FIGURE IN EARLY ISLAMIC ART

37

Fig. 9. Resting caravan. Hariri, Maqamat. Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, ms. ar. 5847, fol. 9. (Photo: from Oleg Grabar, "Art and Architecture," in The Genius of Arab Civilization [Oxford, 1976], p. 93)

approach are the mourners in the funerary scene, also in Paris, BN 5847 (fol. 29v; fig. 10), who express their grief by rending their garments, gesticulating wildly with their hands, raising their eyebrows, or tearing their unkempt hair. These and numerous other examples, which attest to the changing attitude towards the human figure, are also reflected in contemporary writings. A typical instance is an anecdote mentioned by Richard Ettinghausen, according to which a humble Iraqi glassblower threatened the poet Bashshar ibn Burd, known for his ugliness, that if he, the poet, would write a satiric poem against him, he, the glassblower, would paint his face on the door of his house.9 Had the glassblower painted the face of the poet on the door, it presumably would have been a "mock portrait" or a

caricature like the drawing of Bashshar's ugly face. Such an assumption seems reasonable in view of satiric or mocking pictures on Fatimid lusterware. Take, for instance, the satirical "portrait" of a fat, mustached, and double-chinned monk on a fragmentary bowl that originally depicted a scene from the life of the Copts in Egypt.10 It is a caricature of the Christian monk, as are the funny faces and grimaces on other Fatimid fragments.11 A typical example of a satiric or mocking picture in Mesopotamia is a miniature from a dispersed manuscript of the Materia Medica, copied in Rajab 621 (JuneJuly 1224). Once owned by Vever and now in the Sackler Gallery, Washington, D.C. (S 86.0097), it shows a blindfolded man (fig. 11) being ministered to by a half-naked person with a big belly. The miniature,

38
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"Art and Architecture," in The Genius of Arab Civilization

[Oxford, 1976], p. 30)

Fig. 11. Medieval treatment of blindfolded man. Single leaf from the MateriaMedica of Dioscorides. Washington, D.C., Sackler Gallery, S 86.0097. (Photo: from Glenn Lowry and Susan Nemazee, A Jeweler's [Washington, D.C., 1988], p. Eye 70) Ibn Sina, asked a painter by the name of Abu Nasr-i 'Arraq to draw his portrait. He then asked other artists to make forty copies of this portrait, which he then sent to all the neighboring rulers, saying: "There is a man after this likeness whom they call Abu 'Ali ibn Sina. Seek him out and send him to me."13 Other evidence is provided by Nizami Ganjawi, who in his Khusraw and Shirin romance makes the painter named Shapur declare that the people he draws move and the birds he paints fly. Elsewhere, however, Nizami maintains that since men can only be created by God, the painted image has no soul, and has no more corporeal substance than the reflections in a mirror.14 Be that as it may, between the second half of the

which is not directly related to the text, appears to be a parody of a medical treatment, and the halfnaked person seems to be mocking a real one. Curiously enough the man resembles al-Jahiz's description of a certain Ahmad ibn al-Wahab, who in the Kitab al-tarbz wa'l tadwir12 is said to be quadrangular, although because of his enormous paunch and wide hips he appears to be round. We also have contemporary Iranian evidence for the trend toward painting men and women more realistically. For instance, in an anecdote included in the Chahar maqala, Nizami Aruzi Samarkandi talks about the use of portraiture in warrants. According to the story, the Khwarazm shah, in order to find

THE HUMAN

FIGURE IN EARLY ISLAMIC ART

39

Fig. 12. The so-called devil dancer. Persian silhouette ware, late 12th century. London, British Museum, no. 1956-7-28.5. (Photo: from Arthur Lane, Early Islamic Pottery [London, 1947], pl. 49)

twelfth and the mid thirteenth centuries Iranian painters too "portrayed"-as it were-grotesque figures like and scoundrels, which in jongleurs, popular dancers, fact look as if they were modeled after shadow-play figures. They generally appear as a silhouette on latetwelfth-century Persian ceramics, painted in black slip under turquoise or clear glaze. Typical examples are the so-called devil dancer in the British Museum (1956-7-28.5) (fig. 12), and the male dancer in the Victoria and Albert Museum (fig. 13),15 where the painter has especially stressed the man's spike-like hair. On another dish of this type a figure, seated with crossed legs and raised arms, has a disproportionately long nose, elaborately curled hair, and an extremely small forehead.16 It is presumably not incidental that similar silhouette figures occur in contemporary Mesopotamian manuscripts, which probably were also copied from, or at least were inspired by, shadow-play figures. Ettinghausen, who was the first to note these resemblances, pointed, among other examples, to the picture of Abu Zayd leaving al-Harith during the pilgrimage (Maqamat, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, ms. ar. 3929, fol. 69r), and remarked that "even the little plant in the centre [of the scene] looks like a piece of stage property" (fig. 14).17 Another example of the relation between shadow-play figures and miniature painting is the halfnaked, comic person in a detached page from the

Fig. 13. Male dancer with castanets. Persian silhouette ware. London, Victoria and Albert Museum. (Photo: from Arthur
Lane, Early Islamic Pottery [London, 1947], pl. 51a)

dispersed Materia Medica (fig. 11) already mentioned. His elbows and knees are curiously marked by small disks, as if imitating the joints of puppet figures, allowing them to move, raise their arms and feet, and even walk. Recently Shmuel Moreh has shown that by the end of the tenth or early eleventh century Ibn al-Haytham (ca. 965) in his Kitab al-manazir systematically discussed the technical details of the shadow puppets: "There are holes pierced in the bodies of the shadow play figures, so that they can be held
against the screen with a stick. . . . The presenter

holds another stick in his other hand and with this he moves their heads, arms and legs." He then continues that the "light of a candle or lamp placed behind them casts coloured shadows of the translucent figures on the white screen."18 Although Ibn al-Haytham was born in Basra, he spent most of his life in Egypt, where he must have seen shadow-play performances and studied their techniques. He does not say where these performances took place, but they were obviously part of the popular entertainments which were also enjoyed by members of the upper class like Salah al-Din.19 It appears, therefore, that shadow plays and shadow playwrights like Muhammad ibn Daniyal (1248-1311) existed much earlier

40

EVA BAER

Fig. 14. Abu Zayd leaving al-Harith. Hariri, Maqamat. Paris, Bibliotheque Richard Ettinghausen, Arabic Painting [New York, 1962], p. 82)

Nationale,

Ns. ar. 3929, fol. 69r. (Photo: from

than scholars had thought. They may well have inspired Fatimid artists to include in their repertoire scenes from everyday life and popular entertainment and to feel free to depict them in a more realistic style. To conclude: Throughout the first Islamic period, which roughly covers the seventh to mid tenth centuries, Muslim artists still in quest of their own vocabularyadopted foreign, Sasanian, and Greco-Roman models and adapted them for their own purposes. They decorated their rooms with pictures taken from late-antique traditions, such as hunting and other scenes of royal pastimes and depicted female dancers and musicians, which at the same time indicate a continuity of norms Muslim society had inherited from preceding Mediterranean civilizations. To judge by written descriptions, they also reflect common ideas about women and similar concepts of ideal female beauty. Another motivating factor in official art was the desire to demonstrate visually the succession of caliphal power by continuing the Sasanian tradition of "picture galleries," for which written

evidence exists up to at least the Ghaznavid period. In the second phase, beginning in the late tenth to early eleventh century, the artistic vocabulary began to change. On the one hand, the impact of Sasanian and Greco-Roman art was retained; on the other, Islamic artists developed a more "realistic" style, remnants of which appear on Fatimid ceramics. This new style culminated, or found its full expression, in twelfth- to mid-thirteenth-century Mesopotamian book illustrations. The reason-or perhaps reasons-for this change still needs proper explanation, which requires the cooperation of students from other historical disciplines. For example, who were the artists in the Umayyad and early Abbasid period? Were they local residents, or Muslims who copied pre-Islamic models often without understanding their meaning? And what was the relation between patron and artist? Second, the main medium on which lower-class people appear are Fatimid luster ceramics. The technique of lusterware suggests, however, that these ceramics were ordered by members of the upper class who could afford the greater expense involved. Third, in view

THE HUMAN

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of these questions, the problem of the rising bourgeoisie in Fatimid Egypt and thirteenth-century Mesopotamia must be reexamined.
Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv, Israel

8. 9. 10. 11.

NOTES
1. 'Ali ibn al-Husayn al-Mas'udi, Kitab al-tanbih wa'l ashraf (Leiden, 1893), pp. 106,5-107,5; trans. Carra de Vaux, El-Macoudi, Le livre de l'avertissement (Paris, 1896), pp. 150-51. See also "Extraits du modjmelal-tewarikhrelatifs a l'histoire de la Perse," trans. Jules Mohl, Journal Asiatique, March 1841, Arabic text, pp. 268-78; trans. pp. 258-68. Many examples can be found in Katharina Otto-Dorn, "Das islamische Herrscherbild im frfihen Mittelalter (8.-11.Jh)," in Das Bild in der Kunst des Ostens (Stuttgart, 1990), pp. 6178. Inv. no. J. 1264. For a facsimile, see A. Musil, Kusejr 'Amra, 2 vols. (Vienna, 1907), vol. 2, pl. XXIII; cf. 1: 206. For color reproductions of Fortuna and the dancer at Qusayr 'Amra, see M. Almagro et al., Qusayr 'Amra (Madrid, 1975), pl. IXb and XXVIIc. Janine Balty, Mosaiquesantiques de Syrie (Brussels, 1977), pp. 20-21; for Aphrodite, see ibid., pp. 58-59; also figure of Cassiopea, p. 33. R. Ghirshman, Iran, Parthiansand Sassanians (London, 1962), figs. 182 and 258. For the Mshatta fragments, see L. Trumpelmann, "Die Skulpturen von Mashatta," Archdologischer Anzeiger2 (1965): 23676, figs. 1-6, 9-12; on the whole problem concerning the

12. 13.

2.

3. 4.

14.

15. 16 17. 18.

5.

6. 7.

19.

canon of beauty in early Islam, see Eva Baer, "Female Images in Early Islam" (in press). See Richard Ettinghausen, Arab Painting (New York, 1962), pp. 55-56. Ibid., p. 54. Berlin, Museum fur Islamische Kunst, Katalog (Berlin, 1971), no. 275 and pl. 47. See H. Philon, EarlyIslamic Ceramics[9th to 12th Centuries], (Athens, 1980), figs. 487, 489. See also Ali Bey Bahgat and Felix Massoul, La Ceramiquemusulmane de l'Egypte (Cairo, 1930), pl. XXXII,6, which shows the profile of a bearded man with a carrot-shaped nose and open mouth. Ahmad ibn al-Wahab, Kitab al-tarbiwa'l tadwir, ed. Ch. Pellat (Damascus, 1955), p. 5. Nizami-i 'Arudi of Samarqand, Chahar maqala, rev. trans. Edward G. Browne (London, 1900), p. 87, anecdote XXXVI; Persian text edited by Mirza Muhammad, E. J. W. Gibb Memorial vol. 11, 2 (London, 1921): 77-78. See also Sir Th. Arnold, Painting in Islam (NewYork, 1965), p. 127, who notes that since the reign of Mahmud of Ghazna portraiture must have been used for purposes of detection. Priscilla Soucek, "Nizami on Painters and Painting," in IsMuseumof Art, ed. Richard EttinglamicArt in theMetropolitan hausen (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1972), pp. 17-18. Reproduced in Arthur Lane, Early Islamic Pottery (London, 1947), pls. 49A and 51A. Arthur Upham Pope, A Surveyof Persian Art (Tokyo, 1971), vol. 10, pl. 750d. Ettinghausen, Arab Painting, pp. 82-83. Shmuel Moreh, "The Shadow Play (khayalal-zill) in the Light of Arabic Literature," in Journal of ArabicLiterature18 (1987): 47. Ibid., p. 48.