Umayyad Art Re-examined: A New Attitude to Images and Discourse in Visuality

Dr Valerie Gonzalez, Research Associate, SOAS

This seminar will re-examine the established scholarly findings of Umayyad art as a transitional production essentially anchored in the Western and Eastern Late Antique traditions that have inspired it. It will be argued instead that the Umayyads brought about an aesthetic revolution laying out the fundaments of what has become known as ‘Islamic ornament’, a predominantly aniconic form of visual expression. For beyond the adaptive borrowing of pre-existing forms, the Umayyads redefined the art’s condition of meaning based on an unprecedented attitude to images and visual discourse informed by Islamic ontotheology and metaphysics.

For further inquiries please don't hesitate to contact Dr Tanja Tolar .

Convened by Professor Anna Contadini