CHICAGO, IL.- The Smart Museum of Art will present Cosmophilia: Islamic Art from the David Collection, Copenhagen, on view February 1 - May 20, 2007. Cosmophilia—literally “love of ornament”—examines one of the most characteristic and attractive features of Islamic art. Covering over a millennium of Islamic history in regions extending from Spain to India, this comprehensive exhibition surveys the extraordinary range and virtuosity of one of the world’s great artistic traditions. Drawn from the David Collection in Copenhagen, Denmark, Cosmophilia offers a rare opportunity for audiences in the United States to study one of the finest collections of Islamic art, both secular and religious.

On Thursday, February 1, from 5 to 7 p.m., Cosmophilia: Islamic Art from the David Collection, Copenhagen will open at the Smart Museum with an introductory lecture by exhibition curators Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom, the Norma Jean Calderwood Chairs of Islamic and Asian Art at Boston College. The exhibition continues until May 20, 2007, with exciting programming, including tours, family activities, poetry reading, music concerts, lectures, and an academic symposium.

Organized visually by theme, as opposed to chronologically or historically, over one hundred objects in the exhibition are grouped into five sections—figures, writing, geometry, vegetation-arabesque, and hybrids. These sections trace how artisans used these major types of decorations, and how the themes developed in different times and places.

Figures - A common misconception about Islamic art maintains that Islam prohibits figural representation, but this section of the exhibition demonstrates that this statement is not true. The Koran certainly bans idolatry, or the worship of images, so pictures are not found in mosques and other religious settings. However, throughout history Muslims in many parts of the world have enjoyed representations of people and animals in their everyday lives and secular art. Sometimes figures are portrayed realistically, but in other cases the figures are more abstract.

• Velvet with Standing Woman, India or Iran, first half 17th century, Silk and metal lamella spun around silk. This stunning velvet wall-hanging illustrates the difficulty of interpreting figural representations in Islamic art which draws on the techniques and styles of so many regions and traditions. In technique, the cut-and-voided velvet is comparable to those made in Iran during the period of Safavid rule when the art reached its apogee. However, the design is distinctly Indian, from the cusped arch to the mark on the lady’s forehead. Both the scale and the quality of this piece make it a masterpiece of textile art.

• Tapestry Roundel, Central Asia, first half 14th century, Woven of silk and gold thread of animal substrate spun around cotton core. The enthroned prince flanked by courtiers was a common motif in courtly art produced for Muslim royalty, but this unique roundel is one of the finest examples from the Mongol period in Iran. The prince, identified by his caftan, crown, hairstyle, and posture, is seated on a cushioned throne under a parasol, a sign of rank. On his left a Persian or Arab vizier and on his right a Mongol amir represent the two branches of government: the men of the pen and the men of sword. These central figures are set amidst a rich panoply of animals, warriors and plants, with an Arabic inscription around the rim.

Writing - This section concentrates on the central miracle in Islam—the Koran, which Muslims believe was revealed in Arabic to the Prophet Muhammad in the early seventh century in Arabia. Reverence for the word therefore became a primary theme of religious art, as artists endeavored to make the physical presentation of God’s word as beautiful as its content. Calligraphy became the major art form throughout the Islamic lands and developed into many styles for different media and contexts. Given the importance of writing to Islamic culture, its use spilled over from the religious into the secular sphere, and many objects of daily life were decorated with non-Koranic poetry verses.

• Fragment of Folio from a Koran Manuscript, Samarquand, ca. 1400, Ink and gold on paper.
[…Establish God’s handiwork according
To the pattern on which] He has made mankind:
Let there be no change in what God has wrought:
That is the standard Religion:
But most among mankind o not understand
Turn back in repentance to Him…
These two lines from Chapter 30, verses 30-31, belong to the largest Koran manuscript known. It was copied for the Turko-Mongolian warlord Timur (Tamerlane) by the calligrapher Umar Aqta (“Umar the amputee”), who had lost his right hand and therefore wrote with his left. Like the patron’s ego, everything about this manuscript is gigantic. Each page had seven lines written in large muhaqqaq (“indubitable”) script with a reed pen whose nib measured a full centimeter wide on pages that originally measured a whopping 7.2 x 5 feet.

• Bowl, Iraq, 9th century, Earthenware with opaque white glaze, painted in blue.
Arabic writing was often used to adapt foreign artistic styles to local Islamic tastes. In shape and color, this bowl emulates imported Chinese porcelain. The decoration, however, is purely Islamic. It is written with cobalt, a material monopolized by Iraqi potters in the ninth century, and contains the name Abu’l-Baqi, possibly the signature of the potter.

Geometry - Geometric ornament is as old as ornament itself, but under Islam, artisans exploited its possibilities in a particularly wide range of designs. Using simple dots, lines, chevrons, polygons, and circles, they developed a virtually infinite variety of patterns. Some examples in this section were based on the repetition of a single form or motif in staggered rows. Many others, including tiled mosaics or inlaid wood, are made up of combinations of different shapes.

• Door, Iran, 17th century, Several types of ivory and wood, brass inlay. This magnificent door exemplifies the meticulous technique known in Persian as khatamkari, in which thin rods of wood, ivory, bone, and metal are sliced into triangular or diamond-shaped pieces and glued together in patterns. Probably one of a pair placed at the entrance to a tomb or shrine, this door would have taken two years to make and is truly a tour-de-force of the woodworker’s art. It exploits both technique and color to evoke the heavens.

• Bowl, Iran or Iraq, 6th-7th century, Thick colorless glass, facet-cut. The hemispheric shape and facet-cut decoration of this bowl exemplify a popular type of glassware that originated in pre-Islamic times. The glassmaker created the hexagonal facets by grinding the curved surface with a slightly convex cutting wheel. Skillfully working out the design on the bowl itself, the glasscutter subtly varied the shape and layout of the facets to keep the pattern in line as the surface area of the bowl diminished. This type of faceted pattern continued to evolve on glassware produce in Islamic times.

Vegetation and the Arabesque - Artisans in Islamic lands inherited a rich tradition of decoration with vines, stems, leaves, and flowers from the Mediterranean world and Sasanian Persia. Vegetal ornament was used regularly and consistently in all the arts throughout the regions where Islam was the dominant religion, thus making this the largest section of the exhibition. Although artisans sometimes depicted plants and flowers realistically, their most distinctive achievement was the transformation of natural into the arabesque, the quintessential Islamic ornament in which plants and leaves grow according to the laws of geometry.