Islamic art.

what is ISLAMIC ART?

 The art of Islam is essentially a contemplative art, which aims to express above all, an encounter with the Divine Presence. God is the almighty and no creation made by man can be compared to those made by god himself. So therefore Islamic art forbids the making of imitative art. They  feel that man has no right to imitate what god has already created for them, but instead just to enjoy the marvels of god’s work and to be thankful of it. Islamic art is made to bring out the essential qualities of the things that surrounds us.

This religion rests on three fundamental principles: Islam (submission to the Divine Will), Iman (faith), and Ihsan. Ihsan may be translated as 'spiritual virtue' or simply virtue, and includes the ideas of beauty and perfection. More exactly it means inward beauty, beauty of the soul or of the heart, which necessarily emanates outwards, transforming every human activity into an art and every art into the remembrance of God. 

So basically, Islamic art included this three fundamental principles in the art form itself. Islam is a way of life, so to the extent that human activities are integrated into Islam, they become a support for beauty - a beauty which in fact transcends these activities because it is the beauty of Islam itself. so when the three principles are included in the art form, the spirit of islam is thus also rooted in the art work and hence spreading the message of god around.

Islamic calligraphy as art.

For nearly 14 centuries, calligraphy has been the most important medium of artistic expression in Islamic culture. This is due to it being the noblest of the visual arts in the world of Islam, for it is the writing of the Qur'an that is sacred art par excellence. It plays a part more or less analogous to that of the icon in Christian art, for it represents the visible body of the Divine word. Thus calligraphy itself was considered a major art - great calligraphers, who introduced new styles of forming the script, were more famous than great painters, and calligraphy was not only the affair of the craftsman, it was also practiced by many learned people and even by sultans.

Islamic calligraphy on Rosewood writing Quranic four Qul (a verse from the Quran) on the wood by hand

Islamic Calligraphy on ceramic plate.

Arabic is the language of Islam. It is the language in which the Holy Qur'an, Islam's sacred scripture, was revealed to the Prophet by God; thus, daily Muslim life vibrates with it's sacred formulae. Quranic inscriptions, whether engraved in stucco, carved in wood, or chiselled in ceramic tiles, have something of the holiness of the Quranic words which passes over into the writing that embodies them. Arabic is written from right to left; this is as much to say that the writing runs back from the field of action towards the heart. It is the language which binds Muslims of all times and places together in a single cohesive brotherhood.

Istanbul Suleymaniye Mosque, beautiful calligraphy circling the ceiling of the mosque.

Over the centuries, many different scripts have evolved in various regions of the Muslim world. Its smooth linking of its characters when forming words has added to the sense of continuity of design, which parallelism of form has already produce. A band of Arabic writing marching across a door or circling around a platter could thus replace a border in creating the impression of an integrated unit but without putting an end to its sense of indefinite extendibility. The friezes of inscriptions crowning the inner walls of a hall of prayer, or surrounding mihrab, recall to the believer, as much by their rhythm and their hieratic form as by their meaning, the majestic and forceful current of the Quranic language.

Contemporary art.

Calligraphy is still , up till today , a very popular art form. Islamic calligraphy, is done in many ways, breaking traditional forms , like the way its being written , but still however keeping its essential key of including Islamic values in them. Nowadays, Muslim families decorate their houses with modern Islamic calligraphies. Art works such as paintings and embroideries of modern Islamic calligraphy will by hung on walls of their homes.

Modern Islamic calligraphy art  use as home decor.

An example of a modern Islamic calligrapher is Ibrahim Abu Touq. He’s an Islamic calligrapher whose work is as inspired by the music of Beethoven. From this interplay between traditions emerges a surprisingly fertile and refreshing artistic experiment.

Eleven planets, Touq's interpretation of a verse from the Quran.

He feels that Islamic calligraphers are lacking in innovation and creativity and that there is no progress for the past 100 years. So apparently the art of calligraphy has become stagnant. Hence Touq decided to break the norm of making calligraphy the old traditional way. He started experimenting and decided to create text using computers, and create shapes and patterns with graphics software.

One of Touq's work. Bismillah. Inspired by Japanese scripts using the Japanese brush. 

Going into the world of contemporary calligraphy, apart from Islamic, there is such an art form called ‘Beach Calligraphy’. 

Andrew van der Merwe is a professional calligrapher and letter artist based in Cape Town, South Africa. In last six years of his work he was working on developing his original technique of the beach calligraphy. He considers himself as the world’s first professional beach calligrapher. His artworks are made by carving letters in the beach sand. Merwe loves to write and he also enjoys the beach. So he decided to join two of his favorite things and thus creating art. Beach calligraphy. He also developed ways of avoiding footprints because for him the real challenge remains getting the letter forms good. He still wants to keep the fundamental elements of doing calligraphy whereby he wants to keep the writings as perfectly written as he intend it to be.

some of Merwe's work: