Like most other fields, the study of Islamic art is both the beneficiary and the victim of its own past. Like many fields, it is affected in various more or less successful ways by developments and needs in related areas of learning. Like all fields, it is tied to the quality and idiosyncrasies of the men who practice it. Inasmuch as bibliographical surveys according to traditional lines of techniques and periods are available (Pearson, Index Islamicus with supplements, London, 1958, 1962, 1968; especially K.A.C. Creswell, A Bibliography of the Architecture, Arts and Crafts of Islam, Cairo, 1961) and current works are listed with a fair degree of completeness in the yearly Abstracta Islamica published by the Revue des Etudes Islamiques, my concern in this paper will be to review the state of the field, the ways in which one can find out about it, and the work being done according to three major categories: traditional techniques and documentation; new problems and solutions; light and dark areas of research.
