(I don’t recall the title of this piece, but it’s what drew my interest because I have always associated the six-pointed star with Judaism. In Hebrew it’s called a magen david. Now that I think about it, it’s not so surprising to have seen this six-pointed star in the Islamic art collection, because as a geometric shape it is very versatile in the way it can be presented. And cultures draw on influences from each other. This was not the only piece that featured a six-pointed star in this collection!)
The collection was really really nice, and the general sense I got from just about every piece is that there’s a religious story that is being told with minimal imagery. I actually read (or maybe heard?) somewhere that because Islam prohibits the use of idols and idolatry, there are rarely depictions of people or even the prophet Muhammad in mosques or other places of worship. Instead, as the Met collection evidenced, there is huge emphasis on geometric shapes. That’s why you’ll find that mosques are often decorated very extensively and ornately the way in this way. Where there is a need to tell a story, there are blocks of text from the Quran. It’s important to note that culture has great influence on the way religion is approached and practiced. In fact, the only places I really saw people depicted in the Islamic art collection were in the collections from Central and Eastern Asia.
The way geometric shapes are used, though, is interesting because while they are by nature highly structured, they are incorporated seamlessly into lively designs that do not just sit there (for lack of better words). In the same way, the reading is structured — night by night, tale by tale — but is part of a larger story. Each story is part of a greater narrative. Each story serves to sustain the greater narrative.