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2 results

  • Five - Script, Pseudoscript, and Pseudo-pseudoscript in the Work of Filippo Lippi

  • from Part I - Hidden Writing
  • Edited by John Bodel, Brown University, Rhode Island, Stephen Houston, Brown University, Rhode Island
  • Book:
    The Hidden Language of Graphic Signs
    Published online:
    23 August 2021
    Print publication:
    19 August 2021, pp 100-125

  • Summary

    Art historical study of writing in the Islamic world centers on calligraphy, beautiful writing as a high, perhaps the highest expression of Islamic art. This calligraphic ideal is shadowed by the prominent place on Islamic buildings and objects of decoration that looks like writing but is not: called pseudo epigraphic, pseudo Kufic, and the like. The study of pseudo-writing in Islamic art has one of its origins in another curious phenomenon, the prominence of Arabic-like decoration on medieval Byzantine churches. This chapter investigates ways that the presence of Arabic script on objects and buildings in medieval Islam (and Byzantium)conveyed meanings in the large space between the binary opposition of “real” and “pseudo” writing, the ways writing means by way of pattern or cipher, and also through talismanic and incantatory functions.

  • (b) - PERSIAN LITERATURE

  • from 8 - LITERATURE
  • Edited by P. M. Holt, Ann K. S. Lambton, Bernard Lewis
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Islam
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    21 April 1977, pp 671-682

  • Summary

    In imperial Persia secular literature had been of a courtly character, and both its form and content reflected the tastes and interests of the kings and nobles who were its chief patrons. The destruction of Sasanian power brought to an end this system of patronage, and in the subsequent period of disruption, change and readjustment, Muslim Persians began to apply their talents to the enrichment of Arabic writing. The Shah-nama was written in an era when historical events, particularly in eastern Persia, encouraged a hopeful and spirited mood. The Sufi way of life, which advocated intense love and devotion as the means of attaining truth, found a considerable following in Persia, and Sufi convents grew increasingly popular after the fourth/tenth century. Persian mystics often were men of outstanding sensitivity and employed poetry or poetical diction to express their thoughts and to move their fellow men.