Background
Grabar, Oleg was born on November 3, 1929 in Strasbourg, France. Arrived in United States, 1948, naturalized, 1960. Son of Andre and Julie (Ivanova) Grabar.
(This classic work on the nature of early Islamic art has ...)
This classic work on the nature of early Islamic art has now been brought up to date in order to take into consideration material that has recently come to light. In a new chapter, Oleg Grabar develops alternate models for the formation of Islamic art, tightens its chronology, and discusses its implications for the contemporary art of the Muslim world. Reviews of the first edition: "Grabar examines the possible ramifications of sociological, economic, historical, psychological, ecological, and archaeological influences upon the art of Islam. . . [He] explains that Islamic art is woven from the threads of an Eastern, Oriental tradition and the hardy, surviving strands of Classical style, and [he] illustrates this web by means of a variety of convincing and well-chosen examples."-Art Bulletin "A book of absorbing interest and immense erudition. . . All Islamic archaeologists and scholars will thank Professor Grabar for a profound and original study of an immense and complex field, which may provoke controversy but must impress by its mastery and charm by its modesty."-Times Literary Supplement "Oleg Grabar, in this book of exceptional subtlety and taste, surveys and extends his own important contributions to the study of early Islamic art history and works out an original and imaginative approach to the elusive and complex problems of understanding Islamic art."-American Historical Review
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300040466/?tag=2022091-20
(This classic work on the nature of early Islamic art has ...)
This classic work on the nature of early Islamic art has now been brought up to date in order to take into consideration material that has recently come to light. In a new chapter, Oleg Grabar develops alternate models for the formation of Islamic art, tightens its chronology, and discusses its implications for the contemporary art of the Muslim world. Reviews of the first edition: "Grabar examine...
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FKYNCLK/?tag=2022091-20
(La formacion del arte islamico / The Formation of Islamic...)
La formacion del arte islamico / The Formation of Islamic Art
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FKYMLX0/?tag=2022091-20
(A major art historical examination of the practice and te...)
A major art historical examination of the practice and techniques of Mongol painting, based on a reconstruction of the scattered leaves of the Mongol copy of the Persian epic, the Shahnameh.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226305856/?tag=2022091-20
(This illustrated book provides an overview of Islamic art...)
This illustrated book provides an overview of Islamic art and architecture during a time that witnessed the formation of a new artistic culture and its first, medieval, flowering in the vast area from the Atlantic to India. Inspired by Ettinghausen and Grabar's original text, this book has been completely rewritten and updated, and many new illustrations have been added.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300088698/?tag=2022091-20
( In this richly illustrated book, Oleg Grabar shares a v...)
In this richly illustrated book, Oleg Grabar shares a veteran art historian's love for the sheer sensuality of ornamentation. Grabar analyzes early and medieval Islamic objects and uses this art to show how ornament in general enables a direct, immediate encounter between viewers and art objects from any culture and time period.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691040990/?tag=2022091-20
( From the time of Herod through the Crusades, Jerusalem ...)
From the time of Herod through the Crusades, Jerusalem had officially "changed its religion" several times, with Jews, Christians, and Muslims inscribing the story of their faiths on the urban landscape. In this handsomely illustrated book, noted Islamist Oleg Grabar offers a rare account of the great role played by early Islam in defining the "look" of Jerusalem that remained largely intact until the twentieth century. From about 640 to 1100, Muslims transformed Christian Jerusalem, mainly the area now known as the Haram al-Sharif, both physically and ideologically to embody their new faith. Grabar examines this process, showing how it led to great architectural achievements, including The Dome of the Rock, still perhaps the most vivid image to impress any visitor to Jerusalem. Offering a major photographic record of The Dome's mosaics in color together with its interiors, this book shows in rich detail how Islam articulated itself architecturally, touching on historical and legendary memories and on themes of both religious harmony and Islamic triumph. Dominating Jerusalem's landscape today, The Dome of the Rock was commissioned by Abd Al-Malik in 691, and still houses the Rock from which the Prophet Mohammed is believed to have ascended into heaven. Grabar argues that its construction altered the visual equilibrium of Jerusalem by equating its eastern hill, Mt. Moriah, a key landmark in Islam, with its western ones, Golgotha and Mt. Zion, highlighted by Christian monuments. A close look at The Dome's construction and decoration leads to a new explanation of the building as a Late Antique monument of art that could be adapted to several different and at times simultaneous interpretations. Grabar also offers a unique portrait of Jerusalem in the eleventh century under the Fatimid dynasty in Cairo, when the city was at its peak as a peaceful, cosmopolitan center. Through an innovative computer modeling program, Grabar presents fascinating reconstructions of the Haram al-Sharif, taking us down streets and past buildings, of which only remnants exist today.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691036535/?tag=2022091-20
(A wide appreciation of Persian art has only been felt in ...)
A wide appreciation of Persian art has only been felt in the last hundred years or so. In this study, Oleg Grabar presents a good introduction to Persian painting, especially miniatures illustrating literary works, along with a small number of murals and decorated ceramics. Dating from c.1300 to c.1700, this is a history of the technique of painting, of its main techniques and subject matter, the use of space and colour, the depiction of emotion, and so on. The book ably combines the historical framework with an aesthetic appreciation of the art, with many illustrated examples.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691049416/?tag=2022091-20
(Early Islamic Art, 650-1100 is the first in a set of four...)
Early Islamic Art, 650-1100 is the first in a set of four volumes of studies by Oleg Grabar. Between them they bring together more than eighty articles, studies and essays, work spanning half a century. Each volume takes a particular section of the topic, the three subsequent volumes being entitled: Islamic Visual Culture, 1100-1800; Islamic Art and Beyond; and Jerusalem. Reflecting the many incidents of a long academic life, they illustrate one scholar's attempt at making order and sense of 1400 years of artistic growth. They deal with architecture, painting, objects, iconography, theories of art, aesthetics and ornament, and they seek to integrate our knowledge of Islamic art with Islamic culture and history as well as with the global concerns of the History of Art. In addition to the articles selected, each volume contains an introduction which describes, often in highly personal ways, the context in which Grabar's scholarship developed and the people who directed and mentored his efforts. The present volume concentrates primarily on documents provided by archaeology understood in its widest sense, and including the study of texts with reference to monuments or to the contexts of these monuments. The articles included represent major contributions to the understanding of the formative centuries of Islamic art, focusing on the Umayyad (661-750) and Fatimid (969-1171) dynasties in Greater Syria and in Egypt, and on the Mediterranean or Iranian antecedents of early Islamic art. Historical, cultural, and religious themes, including the role of court ceremonies, the growth of cities, and the importance of the Qur'an, are introduced to help explain how a new art was formed in the central lands of the Near East and how its language can be retrieved from visual or written sources.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0860789217/?tag=2022091-20
(Islamic Visual Culture, 1100-1800 is the second in a set ...)
Islamic Visual Culture, 1100-1800 is the second in a set of four volumes of studies on Islamic art by Oleg Grabar. Between them they bring together more than eighty articles, studies and essays, work spanning half a century by a master of the field. Each volume takes a particular section of the topic, the three other volumes being entitled: Early Islamic Art 650-1100; Islamic Art and Beyond; and Jerusalem. Reflecting the many incidents of a long academic life, they illustrate one scholar's attempt at making order and sense of 1400 years of artistic growth. They deal with architecture, painting, objects, iconography, theories of art, aesthetics and ornament, and they seek to integrate our knowledge of Islamic art with Islamic culture and history as well as with the global concerns of the History of Art. In addition to the articles selected, each volume contains an introduction which describes, often in highly personal ways, the context in which Grabar's scholarship developed and the people who directed and mentored his efforts. The focus of the present volume is on the key centuries - the eleventh through fourteenth - during which the main directions of traditional Islamic art were created and developed and for which classical approaches of the History of Art were adopted. Manuscript illustrations and the arts of objects dominate the selection of articles, but there are also forays into later times like Mughal India and into definitions of area and period styles, as with the Mamluks in Egypt and the Ottomans, or into parallels between Islamic and Christian medieval arts.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0860789225/?tag=2022091-20
(Jerusalem is the final volume in a set of four selections...)
Jerusalem is the final volume in a set of four selections of studies on Islamic art by Oleg Grabar. Between them they bring together more than eighty articles, studies and essays, work spanning half a century by a master of the field. Each volume takes a particular section of the topic, the three others being entitled: Early Islamic Art 650-1100, Islamic Visual Culture, 1100-1800, and Islamic Art and Beyond. Reflecting the many incidents of a long academic life, they illustrate one scholar's attempt at making order and sense of 1400 years of artistic growth. They deal with architecture, painting, objects, iconography, theories of art, aesthetics and ornament, and they seek to integrate our knowledge of Islamic art with Islamic culture and history as well as with the global concerns of the History of Art. In addition to the articles selected, each volume contains an introduction which describes, often in highly personal ways, the context in which Grabar's scholarship developed and the people who directed and mentored his efforts. The focus of this volume is what is now known as the Old City of Jerusalem. This plays a unique role in Islamic culture, as a city whose physical shape was created by a succession of Muslim rulers on a base created by the Roman empire. And then Jerusalem shelters the Dome of the Rock, the first major building sponsored by a Muslim patron and one of the masterpieces of medieval architecture. Yet it is a building whose original purpose is still obscure. The articles selected for this volume represent nearly half a century of concern, by one of the world's foremost authorities on the subject, for this extraordinary city, for its buildings, and for the nexus of meanings associated with them.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/086078925X/?tag=2022091-20
("Islamic Art and Beyond" is the third in a set of four vo...)
"Islamic Art and Beyond" is the third in a set of four volumes of studies on Islamic art by Oleg Grabar. Between them they bring together more than eighty articles, studies and essays, work spanning half a century by a master of the field. Each volume takes a particular section of the topic, the three other volumes being entitled: "Early Islamic Art, 650-1100"; "Islamic Visual Culture, 1100-1800"; and "Jerusalem". Reflecting the many incidents of a long academic life, they illustrate one scholar's attempt at making order and sense of 1400 years of artistic growth. They deal with architecture, painting, objects, iconography, theories of art, aesthetics and ornament, and they seek to integrate our knowledge of Islamic art with Islamic culture and history as well as with the global concerns of the History of Art. In addition to the articles selected, each volume contains an introduction which describes, often in highly personal ways, the context in which Grabar's scholarship developed and the people who directed and mentored his efforts. The articles in the present volume illustrate how the author's study of Islamic art led him in two directions for a further understanding of the arts. One is how to define Islamic art and what impulses provided it with its own peculiar forms and dynamics of growth. Was it a faith or a combination of social, historical, and cultural events? And how has 'Islamic art' impacted on the contemporary arts of the Islamic world? The other issue is that of the meanings to be given to forms like domes, so characteristic of Islamic art, or to terms like symbol, signs, or aesthetic values in the arts, especially when one considers the contemporary world. The Islamic examples allow for the development of new intellectual positions for the history and criticism of the arts everywhere.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0860789268/?tag=2022091-20
( The Dome of the Rock, the beautiful Muslim shrine in t...)
The Dome of the Rock, the beautiful Muslim shrine in the walled Old City of Jerusalem, was fully restored to its original state in the last half-century. Thus, this structure, sited on the third holiest spot on earth for Muslims, is at once a product of the seventh century and almost entirely the work of our own times--a paradox in keeping with the complexities and contradictions of history and religion, architecture and ideology that define this site. This book tells the story of the Dome of the Rock, from the first fateful decades of its creation--on the esplanade built in the fourth decade B.C.E. for the Second Jewish Temple--to its engulfment in the clashes of the Crusades and the short-lived Christianization of all of Jerusalem, to its modern acquisition of different and potent meanings for Muslim, Christian, and Jewish cultures. Oleg Grabar's presentation combines what we know of the building with the views of past observers and with the broader historical, cultural, and aesthetic implications of the monument. Primarily it is as a work of art that the Dome of the Rock stands out from these pages, understood for the quality that allows it to transcend the constrictions of period and perhaps even those of faith and culture. Finally, Grabar grapples with the question this monumental work of art so eloquently poses: whether the pious requirements of a specific community can be reconciled with universal aesthetic values.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674023137/?tag=2022091-20
(This opulent volume of works from illustrated and illumin...)
This opulent volume of works from illustrated and illuminated manuscripts culled from important public and private collections offers a thorough introduction to the wonders of Islamic art. A renowned scholar of Islamic art, history and culture, Oleg Grabar introduces in this book a wide range of illuminated manuscript masterpieces from the eighth to the seventeenth century. The heroes of grand epics such as Alexander the Great are found side-by-side with mythical monarchs, sultans, and even monsters. Illuminated manuscripts of the Koran, epic poetry, and scientific works from the Egyptian, Syrian, Persian, Mogul, and Ottoman Empires await discovery. The book opens with an essay which contextualizes the works-the originals of which reside in the Louvre, French National Library, National Library of Cairo, the British Library, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Topkapi Museum, the Freer Gallery of Art and the collections of the Aga Khan and Khalili families. Following is a selection of two hundred full-color illustrations accompanied by the author's insightful commentary. Including examples of some of the world's most beautiful artistic expressions, this collection of carefully chosen works not only illustrates an important period in art history but also serves as a monument to the achievements of Islamic culture.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3791343793/?tag=2022091-20
Grabar, Oleg was born on November 3, 1929 in Strasbourg, France. Arrived in United States, 1948, naturalized, 1960. Son of Andre and Julie (Ivanova) Grabar.
Bachelor magna cum laude, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1950. Licence d'Histoire, University Paris, 1950. Doctor of Philosophy, Princeton University, New Jersey, 1955.
Doctor (honorary), University Michigan.
Instructor University Michigan, 1954-1955, assistant professor, 1955-1959, associate professor, 1959-1964, professor, 1964-1969. Director American School of Oriental Research, Jerusalem, Jordan, 1960-1961, vice president, 1968-1975. Professor fine arts Harvard University, 1969-1981, Aga Khan professor Islamic art, 1981-1990.
With school history studies Institute For Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, 1990-1999. Retired, 1999
Director Michigan-Harvard University excavations in Syria, 1964-1971.
(This illustrated book provides an overview of Islamic art...)
( From the time of Herod through the Crusades, Jerusalem ...)
(A major art historical examination of the practice and te...)
(This opulent volume of works from illustrated and illumin...)
(This classic work on the nature of early Islamic art has ...)
(This classic work on the nature of early Islamic art has ...)
( The Dome of the Rock, the beautiful Muslim shrine in t...)
( In this richly illustrated book, Oleg Grabar shares a v...)
(Islamic Visual Culture, 1100-1800 is the second in a set ...)
("Islamic Art and Beyond" is the third in a set of four vo...)
(Jerusalem is the final volume in a set of four selections...)
(Early Islamic Art, 650-1100 is the first in a set of four...)
(The last pre-Islamic Persian Empire, ruled by the Sasania...)
(A wide appreciation of Persian art has only been felt in ...)
(The tenth volume of an annual publication on Islamic art ...)
(Islamic Art and Architecture 650-1250 by Richard Ettingha...)
(La formacion del arte islamico / The Formation of Islamic...)
(Book by Grabar, Oleg)
(2nd)
Author: Coinage of Tulunide, 1957, Islamic Architecture and Its Decoration, 1967, Sasanian Silver, 1967, The Formation of Islamic Art, 1973, The Alhambra, 1978, City in the Desert, 1978, Epic Images, 1982, Illustrations of the Maqamat, 1984, Islamic Art and Architecture, 650 to 1250, 1987, The Great Mosque of Isfahan, 1989, The Mediation of Ornament, 1992, The Shape of the Holy: Early Islamic Jerusalem, 1996, La Peinture Persane, 1999, Mostly Miniatures, 2000, Islamic Art and Architecture, 660-1250, 2001, Constructing the Study of Islamic Art, 2005-2006, The Dome of the Rock, 2006, Decoration of a Page Trasmic Lands, 2009, Where Heaven and Earth Meet, 2009, The Decorated Page, 2009. Editor: Ars Orientalis, 1957-1971, Muqarnas, 1983-1992. Contributor articles to professional journals.
Member College Art Association (director 1968-1972), Archeological Institute America, Mediaeval Academy America, German Archeological Institute, Middle Eastern Studies Association, American Academy Arts & Sciences, American Philosophy Society, British Academy (honorary), Austrian Academy (honorary), Academy Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (Paris).
Married Terry Ann Harris, June 9, 1951. Children: Nicolas Howard, Anne Louise.