Islamic Ar 31ts By Lucien de Guise Islamic Arts Diary


LEADING LIGHT It seems that in this 40th anniversary of Edward Said’s enduringly popular book on the subject, Orientalism is alive and well and attracting large audiences. Te Palestinian writer’s interest in the subject barely touched on art, but he did mention Delacroix. Although the great French Romantic covered many genres, he initiated an entirely new approach to the Orient and it is this that keeps his fame alive as much as ‘Liberty Leading the People’. His flower and crucifixion paintings are barely known but are winning more admirers with the latest exhibition of his work. Opening this month at the


Metropolitan Museum of Art, the succinctly titled Delacroix closed recently at the Louvre. It was the most-visited exhibition in the Louvre’s history, beating even the records for Leonardo da Vinci and JAD Ingres. Ingres might have been particularly disappointed as his version of Orientalism was more lascivious and entirely without authenticity. He had never been to the ‘Orient’, while Delacroix broke new ground by travelling there and truly observing. His views gave Orientalism a powerful immediacy that was not


Young Tiger Playing with Its Mother (1830), Musée du Louvre, Paris © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre) / Franck Raux


lost on any 19th-century French artist. Ingres described Delacroix’s view of an Ottoman massacre as ‘fever and epilepsy’. What is most astonishing is that this exhibition is the first major retrospective devoted to Delacroix to be held in North America. As a joint project with the Musée du Louvre, it ranges as widely as the artist did. Tere are more than 150 paintings, drawings, prints, and manuscripts, many of which have never been seen


Saada, the Wife of Abraham Ben Chimol, and Préciada, One of Teir Daughters (1832), watercolour over graphite on wove paper, Te Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, bequest of Walter C Baker, 1971


in the USA although the UK’s National Gallery featured a good number of them two years ago with its more daringly titled Delacroix and the Rise of Modern Art. Instead of specifically showing


Women of Algiers in Teir Apartment (1833–34), oil on canvas, Musée du Louvre, Paris © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre) / Franck Raux


Global Geometry


From an elderly artist with recently acquired global acclaim, to an even older artist who was born into renown and has been adding to her family legacy for decades. Sunset, Sunrise, is a major solo exhibition of works by Monir Farmanfarmaian. Tis cosmopolitan 93-year-old is now exhibiting at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, courtesy of Te Tird Line, Dubai. With over 70 works on display, Sunset, Sunrise is the largest exhibition of Monir’s work so far, providing an opportunity to rediscover the astonishingly kaleidoscopic nature of her 1970s sculptures as well as drawings, jewellery and embroidery and collages from the 1980s that have never been seen before. Providing a contemporary flavour are new pen and ink drawings, fresh from her studio in Iran. ‘Te Irish and the Iranians share a love of poetry in their cultures. My poetry is in my art, and I am honoured to


share it in this IMMA exhibition,’ stated Monir on her latest exhibition. Much of Monir’s mystique goes


back to the 1950s, when she moved among New York’s most influential artists, including Jackson Pollock and Frank Stella. Embodying histories of both East and West, Sunset, Sunrise reflects the fluidity of a career lived between two cultures. Te artist’s early involvement with graphic design and experimental modern abstraction in New York City gave way to a period of intense research into traditional craftsmanship and folk art in Iran’s more remote regions. Maintaining Western avant-garde principles, she delved into Persian mysticism and simultaneously evoked the socio- political Islamic landscape as well as the easily recognisable geometry of Iran’s artistic and architectural heritage. Entirely at ease in this


collision of cultures, Farmanfarmaian navigated a path to her own distinct form of rich geometric abstraction. Rachel Tomas, Senior Curator:


Sunset (2015), mirror and reverse-glass painting on plaster and wood, 130 x 100 cm. Private Collection, United Arab Emirates. Courtesy of the artist and Te Tird Line, Dubai.


Head of Exhibitions at IMMA first discovered Farmanfarmaian’s work when she was researching for the popular IMMA exhibition As Above, So Below and goes on to say, ‘Monir’s pioneering approach as an Iranian artist, fuses traditional skills with contemporary sensibilities to create a truly global and timeless practice, and one that deserved a significant international retrospective. I am particularly pleased that IMMA was able to originate this new framing of Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian here in Dublin, and that we will tour the exhibition to our partners in Sharjah next year’. • Sunrise, Sunset at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, until 25 November


Delacroix’s influence on 20th-century art, Te Met exhibition tries to show everything. It is a chronological tale that keeps coming back to the Orient, even though the artist only visited once. North Africa made an enormous impression on him. Rather than belittling or patronising the inhabitants, he saw them as a continuation of the spirit of ancient


Greece and Rome. Nobility was the perfect subject matter for an artist as romantic as himself. He even thought of himself as being what Edward Said would have called the ‘Other’, widely described as the ‘Peruvian’ because of his dark exoticism. Delacroix’s notebooks, crammed with sketches of North Africa, served him for years after he had settled into fame and success in Paris. Tis exhibition shows the original sketches as well as the finished products. Some of these, such as Women of Algiers in their Apartment, have not only become universally well-known, but have also been the inspiration for artists ever since. Picasso was especially obvious in his admiration. In addition to his fascination with human life in the Orient, he developed a passion for animal paintings. Many of these were painted before he set foot in North Africa, but the spirit of the East, as he imagined it, is still apparent almost 200 years later. His Young Tiger Playing with its Mother is not something he would have seen in North Africa anyway; instead it makes clear his curiosity about distant lands and their inhabitants. Seeing Arabian horses in their natural habitat was another revelation for an artist who could thereafter never resist their wild-eyed energy. Although Delacroix is chiefly


recognised for his expressive handling of paint, he was also a superb and innovative draftsman. As a bonus, the Met has already opened an additional exhibition that ends earlier than the main attraction (12 November). Devotion to Drawing: Te Karen B. Cohen Collection of Eugène Delacroix examines the vital role of drawing in the artist’s practice through more than 100 works, from finished watercolours to sketchbooks, to preparatory drawings for instantly recognisable projects. Unlike the bigger exhibition, with its ubiquitous use of a brooding young Delacroix, the exhibition of drawings is promoted by an Orientalist equestrian sketch. • Delacroix at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, from 17 September to 6 January 2019


Head of the Undersecretary (2000), coloured ink on watercolour paper. Courtesy of the artist © Ibrahim El-Salahi


From Minarets to Dreaming Spires


Unlike the two Delacroix exhibitions, time is running out fast for those who want to see the influential work of Ibrahim El-Salahi. Tis pioneer of African and Arab Modernism is having his first exhibition in Oxford, his home town for the past 20 years. Born in 1930, El-Salahi has


been well known in the UK, at least, since 2013 when Tate Modern made him the subject for its first ever retrospective of an African artist. His soon-to- closed exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum provides a novel approach to the artist’s work by creating a dialogue with the museum’s collection of ancient Sudanese pottery. El-Salahi has selected objects, some of which go back more than 4,000 years, with images of the people, plants and wildlife of the region. He enjoys linking the past with the present, often mirroring the earthy reds and browns that are part of Sudanese pottery and the landscape. Te exhibition covers most of


El-Salahi’s long career, including the recent Pain Relief drawings (2017–18). Tese works have been developed in response to the artist’s chronic pain, for which he is taking prescription medication. Te drawings have been made on envelopes and medicine packets: ‘to concentrate on it is like a form of meditation; I do not feel the pain at all. It is a kind of medicine itself ’. Tey are intimately connected with the Muslim artist’s adherence to his faith.


His family have a long


tradition of religious scholarship, which brought him into the realm of calligraphy at an early age. After winning a scholarship to the Slade School, he returned to Sudan and helped forge a new direction for African art. Bringing together Islamic, regional and European inspiration, the result was something entirely new for his home continent. His homeland has not always reciprocated. After being imprisoned during the 1970s he has resided outside Sudan, most recently in Oxford, a city with a growing community of Muslim artists.


SEPTEMBER 2018 ASIAN ART


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