Chapter 9 - Mimetic Geometries

Summary

Often conceived as the abstract counterpoint to the supposedly absent representational image, geometry suffuses visual cultures of the Islamic world. Chapter 9 examines its theorization in relation to legacies of Sufi cosmology and music. While often contrasted with European representational traditions, the geometry of Islamic pattern is, like perspective, an optical device structuring surface treatment. Without offering a hermeneutic of geometry, Islamic discourses suggest an implicit understanding of geometry as an agent of meaning without a semiotic structure of signifier and signified. Geometry does not re-present; it presents. As such, its religious significance has everything to do with perception and little to do with intention. Putting forth its own quiddity, geometry induces subjects to infinitely reaffirm their own transience. It prepares them for enhanced religious insight and theological theorization. The infinitely shifting subjectivity it induces both enacts and contrasts the doctrinal absoluteness of God. This chapter examines the meanings accorded to geometry both in Islamic and Western discourses. The first section suggests origins for the common art-historical premise that geometry functions decoratively rather than mimetically. The subsequent section uses Islamic discourses about geometry to reveal its meanings not only as a cultural sign but as a mimetic practice.