This is my favorite piece of art from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s an Incense burner of Amir Saif al-Din Muhammad al-Mawardi from Iran, Seliuq period (1040-1196), dated A.H 577/A.D 1181-82. It just really caught my attention, a zoomorphic incense burner shaped like lion right in the middle of the room. There was a great deal of information written in Arabic engraved on the exterior. From the information provided; this incense burner’s head is removable so coal and incense can be placed inside it and the neck is pierced so that the scented smoke can escape.
The other collections of Islamic art in the museum were extremely captivating; the artists did a phenomenal job of paying close attention to detail. Most of the artwork (the carpets) had amazing designs; there were a lot of weird patterns made with different shapes. I have an Islamic cultural background, there were many tablets and large books there with writings with verses from the Quran, so I found that very interesting all the different medium’s individuals used for writing Quran verses on. I had eye-opening experience walking through the Islamic art exhibit.
The Arabian Nights is very similar to the Islamic art collection; the stories are very complicated and somewhat difficult to understand. Much like the artwork you really need pay close attention to the details in order to fully understand what you’re looking at/reading.
1 response so far ↓
dh141373 // Apr 14th 2015 at 1:13 am
I actually really liked this piece as well. I like that it has multiple functions, which are it being an incense burner and also simply a decorative piece. It also incorporates different animal parts into one. It looks like a cat but if you look at the feet, they are not paws so the artist was able to use his imagination.