Böcker av Oleg Grabar

How ornamentation enables a direct and immediate encounter between viewers and art objects Based on universal motifs, ornamentation occurs in many artistic traditions, though it reaches its most expressive, tangible, and unique form in the art of the Islamic world. The Mediation of Ornament shares a veteran art historian's love for the sheer sensuality of Islamic ornamentation, but also uses this art to show how ornament serves as a consistent intermediary between viewers and artistic works from all cultures and periods. Oleg Grabar analyzes early and medieval Islamic objects, ranging from frontispieces in Yemen to tilework in the Alhambra, and compares them to Western examples, treating all pieces as testimony of the work, life, thought, and emotion experienced in one society. The Mediation of Ornament is essential reading for admirers of Islamic art and anyone interested in the ways of perceiving and understanding the arts more broadly.

The third in a set of four volumes of studies on Islamic art by Oleg Grabar, this book aims to integrate knowledge of Islamic art with Islamic culture and history as well as with the global concerns of the History of Art. It covers topics such as architecture, painting, objects, iconography, theories of art, aesthetics and ornament.

The material in this volume has been arranged under four main headings: 'Origins and Context'; 'Secular Culture Under the Umayyads'; 'Fatimid Egypt and the Muslim West'; and 'The Muslim East'.

This book tells the story of the site, from its creation to its modern acquisition of different and potent meanings for Muslim, Christian, and Jewish cultures. Primarily it is as a work of art that the Dome of the Rock emerges from these pages, understood for the quality that allows it to transcend time-and perhaps even faith and culture.