Islamic Art in Context (Perspectives (Harry N. Abrams, Inc.).)

For courses in Nonwestern Art, Islamic Art or supplement to the Western Art Survey. The first social history of Islamic art, this text offers a thematic exploration of both court and everyday Islamic art from its beginnings until the late seventeenth century in the Islamic world from Spain to Afghanistan. Written in a lively, engaging style by a noted historian, it pays unusually focused attention to context the literary, social, and cultural background for art works. An abundance of high-quality photographs, many in color, illustrates the full range of Islamic arts from buildings, paintings, and sculptures, to carpets, coins, ivory inlay, jade carvings, metalwork, glass, ceramics, calligraphy, etc. All-encompassing in approach, it considers the masterful as well as the commonplace, the preserved as well as the "lost." Part of the Perspectives series of modestly priced, heavily illustrated, high-quality paperback books on specific subjects in art history.