Issue of Formation of Early Islamic Ornament on the Example of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, the First Half of the 8th Century

Abstract

In the 7th century, a new monotheistic religion, Islam, was originated. The process of uniting the Arabs on the basis of ideological and religious beliefs led to emergence of a new state – the Arab Caliphate. Art provided a powerful visual language to demonstrate tmight and authority of the Caliph. The restrictions imposed by Islam had a significant impact on the formation of Arab art. Although images of living creatures were used in the ornamentation of secular buildings, for example, we can find them in the mosaics and sculptures of the palace complex of Khirbat al-Mafjar, the strict prohibition was fully present in the architectural decoration of religious constructions. Nevertheless, despite these restrictions, the visual arts of Islamic countries developed as a self-sufficient phenomenon. Constrained by religious attitudes, the masters of the Arab Caliphate were forced to invent abstract forms of art that could fully influence the adherents of the new faith. The need for diversity and the search for variability with an extremely limited range of motifs led to the fact that ornamentation took on a special place in Islamic art. The Umayyad era is the period when ornament became a special pictorial medium and patterns took a central place in the decoration of cult architectural structures. The Great Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, where examples of some of the earliest Islamic ornaments are presented, is of great interest for this study. The article examines the mosaics of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus and analyzes the ornamental motifs used in its decoration during the reign of the Umayyad dynasty.

Keywords

Islamic art; art of the Caliphate; ornamentation; ornament types; Islamic architectural art; the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus; mosaic;

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НАУЧНЫЕ ТРУДЫ
Санкт-Петербургской
академии художеств

69

Issues of the Foreign Art Development

When citing an article, use a bibliographic reference:
Issue of Formation of Early Islamic Ornament on the Example of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, the First Half of the 8th Century // Scientific Papers of St Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts'69. . Issues of the Foreign Art Development. 2024 СПб. : СПб. акад. художеств, 2024. 184 с. C. . https://doi.org/10.62625/2782-1889.2024.49.15.001

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