An Iskandarnāma of Nizami Produced for Ibrahim Sultan

2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 235-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lâle Uluç

This paper introduces a copy of the Iskandarnāma of Nizami dated 1435 and dedicated to the Timurid prince Ibrahim Sultan, grandson of the eponymous founder of the Timurid dynasty. It discusses the various features of the manuscript together with comparable examples from the same period, and also focuses on Abu al-Fath Ibrahim Sultan ibn Shah Rukh and his role as both a military leader and a patron of the arts during his tenure as the governor of the provinces of Fars, Kirman, and Luristan (1414–35). Utilizing the visual data together with the historical context of the period, this essay interprets one of the illustrations of the Iskandarnāma, hoping to fulfill what David Summers called “the most basic task of art history,” which he says “is to explain why works of art look the way they look.” The addition of this Iskandarnāma manuscript to the surviving corpus of works that can be connected to Ibrahim Sultan will provide a further insight into the important patronage of this Timurid prince.

PMLA ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 118 (2) ◽  
pp. 321-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. J. T. Mitchell

Having counted the adjectives, and weighed the lines, and measured the rhythms, a Formalist either stops silent with the expression of a man who does not know what to do with himself, or throws out an unexpected generalization which contains five per cent of Formalism and ninety-five per cent of the most uncritical intuition.—Trotsky, Literature and Revolution (ch. 5)Bring out number weight & measure in a year of dearth.—Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (35)Everyone knows that the concept of form has outlived its usefulness in discussions of literature, the arts, and media. The word does not appear in the recent handbooks of critical terms in art history and literary studies issued by the University of Chicago Press (Nelson and Shiff; Lentricchia and McLaughlin), and it appears in Raymond Williams's classic glossary, Keywords, only in its derivative (and mainly pejorative) form as an “-ism,” as in the phrase “mere formalism.” Formalists, as we know, are harmless drudges who spend their days counting syllables, measuring line lengths, and weighing emphases (Trotsky), or they are decadent aesthetes who waste their time celebrating beauty and other ineffable, indefinable qualities of works of art. If form has any afterlife in the study of literature, its role has been completely overtaken by the concept of structure, which rightly emphasizes the artificial, constructed character of cultural forms and defuses the idealist and organicist overtones that surround the concept of form.


Author(s):  
Stephen Davies

Ontology is the study of the kinds of things there are in the world. The ontology of art considers the matter, form, and mode in which art exists. Works of art are social constructs in the sense that they are not natural kinds but human creations. The way we categorize them depends on our interests, and to that extent ontology is not easily separated from sociology and ideology. Nevertheless, some classifications and interests are likely to be more revealing of why and how art is created and appreciated. There are a number of traditional classifications of the arts, for instance in terms of their media (stone, words, sounds, paint, etc.), their species (sculpture, literature, music, drama, ballet, etc.), or their styles or contents (tragedy, comedy, surrealism, impressionism, etc.). The ontology of works of art does not map neatly on to these classifications, however.


2000 ◽  
Vol 90 ◽  
pp. 18-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Tanner

Recent work in ancient art history has sought to move beyond formalist interpretations of works of art to a concern to understand ancient images in terms of a broader cultural, political, and historical context. In the study of late Republican portraiture, traditional explanations of the origins of verism in terms of antecedent influences — Hellenistic realism, Egyptian realism, ancestral imagines — have been replaced by a concern to interpret portraits as signs functioning in a determinate historical and political context which serves to explain their particular visual patterning. In this paper I argue that, whilst these new perspectives have considerably enhanced our understanding of the forms and meanings of late Republican portraits, they are still flawed by a failure to establish a clear conception of the social functions of art. I develop an account of portraits which shifts the interpretative emphasis from art as object to art as a medium of socio-cultural action. Such a shift in analytic perspective places art firmly at the centre of our understanding of ancient societies, by snowing that art is not merely a social product or a symbol of power relationships, but also serves to construct relationships of power and solidarity in a way in which other cultural forms cannot, and thereby transforms those relationships with determinate consequences.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Kubovy

Some neuroaestheticians have adopted a strongly reductionistic view of the arts and sought to supplant scholarship about the arts with an understanding of their evolutionary and neuropsychological underpinnings. I use the work of several neuroaestheticians to provide examples of four problematic tendencies that beset this approach: (1) assume that a domain-general system encodes the affective value of works of art; (2) oversimplify or disregard art history and scholarship about the arts; (3) apply laboratory findings to explain unique works of art, and (4) use widespread preferences to account for works of art. I then diagnose the ailment underlying these tendencies: the denial of autonomous standing to the production and interpretation of the arts, and suggest remedies. I end with an example of research that shows how neuroscientific research can successfully addresses an important and long-standing aesthetic question.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Kubovy

[In press, Art & Perception] Some neuroaestheticians have adopted a strongly reductionistic view of the arts and sought to supplant scholarship about the arts with an understanding of their evolutionary and neuropsy- chological underpinnings. I use the work of several neuroaestheticians to provide examples of four problematic tendencies that beset this approach: (1) assume that a domain-general system encodes the affective value of works of art; (2) oversimplify or disregard art history and scholarship about the arts; (3) apply laboratory findings to explain unique works of art, and (4) use widespread preferences to account for works of art. I then diagnose the ailment underlying these tendencies: the denial of autonomous standing to the production and inter- pretation of the arts, and suggest remedies. I end with an example of research that shows how neuroscientific research can successfully addresses an important and long-standing aesthetic question.


2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Doniwen Pietersen

This research article focuses on selected Old Testament (OT) texts that deal with the theme of violence and disempowerment. The selected texts are studied and viewed from a feminist interpretation perspective, and laid bare the violent and mistreatment of women in these texts. This research study builds on the work of Phyllis Trible (1978), and she uses the term ‘texts of terror’ to refer to passages where women suffer especially at the hands of men. She believes that passages, such as Deuteronomy 22:5, are regrettable and should be a cause of repentance in order to avoid them being repeated again. The way this article deals with the aforementioned exemplary books or texts in the OT is to explore a gendered feminist lens to understand the theme of disempowerment or violence against women. This approach, with the data, lays bare to the reader the nature of the problem of disempowerment and violence against women.Contribution: This article brings a feminist understanding of the OT Bible (including its social-historical context) in order to gain a clearer insight into the problematic narratives of the disempowerment of and violence against women in a patriarchal society.


2004 ◽  
pp. 114-128
Author(s):  
V. Nimushin

In the framework of broad philosophic and historical context the author conducts comparative analysis of the conditions for assimilating liberal values in leading countries of the modern world and in Russia. He defends the idea of inevitable forward movement of Russia on the way of rationalization and cultivation of all aspects of life, but, to his opinion, it will occur not so fast as the "first wave" reformers thought and in other ideological and sociocultural forms than in Europe and America. The author sees the main task of the reformist forces in Russia in consolidation of the society and inplementation of socially responsible economic policy.


2010 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-125
Author(s):  
Frank Ruda

Der Beitrag untersucht Merleau-Pontys Phänomenologie der Wahrnehmung als eine Phänomenologie der Kunst. Die dominante Rolle, die Beispiele aus den Künsten in dem Text einnehmen, läßt sich zunächst daraus erklären, daß Kunstwerke eben diejenige Dynamik und Verfaßtheit eines Reflexionsgeschehens zeigen, die das phänomenologische Projekt als solches zu entfalten sucht. Darüber hinaus wird es durch die Konfrontation mit künstlerischen Werken über sich selbst hinaus – oder besser: zu einer Reflexion seiner selbst getrieben. Dieser von der Kunst ausgehend entwickelte »neue Stil« der Reflexivität wird als »ästhetische Inkorporation« diskutiert.<br><br>The paper discusses Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception as a phenomenology of art. The prevalence of examples from the arts in his text indicates that works of art possess the very same dynamic of reflexivity that the phenomenological project as a whole seeks to develop. Furthermore, by way of confrontation with works of art, the project is driven to transcend itself – or more precisely: to reflect itself. This »new style« of reflexivity may be discussed as »aesthetic incorporation.«


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-26
Author(s):  
S.V. Tsymbal ◽  

The digital revolution has transformed the way people access information, communicate and learn. It is teachers' responsibility to set up environments and opportunities for deep learning experiences that can uncover and boost learners’ capacities. Twentyfirst century competences can be seen as necessary to navigate contemporary and future life, shaped by technology that changes workplaces and lifestyles. This study explores the concept of digital competence and provide insight into the European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators.


Author(s):  
Andrew Erskine

Plutarch wrote twenty-three Greek Lives in his series of Parallel Lives—of these, ten were devoted to Athenians. Since Plutarch shared the hostile view of democracy of Polybius and other Hellenistic Greeks, this Athenian preponderance could have been a problem for him. But Plutarch uses these men’s handling of the democracy and especially the demos as a way of gaining insight into the character and capability of his protagonists. This chapter reviews Plutarch’s attitude to Athenian democracy and examines the way a statesman’s character is illuminated by his interaction with the demos. It also considers what it was about Phocion that so appealed to Plutarch, first by looking at his relationship with the democracy and then at the way he evokes the memory of Socrates. For him this was not a minor figure, but a man whose life was representative of the problems of Athenian democracy.


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