Month: March 2018

Wasn’t it Pretty?

Via stocksnap.com

We watched the sun rise over the horizon like a painter’s palette — Wasn’t it pretty?

The purples dripped into golds and reds like royalty speaking — Wasn’t it pretty?

You touched my face like a child smooths the petals of a sunflower before picking it,

Just as soft as a bunny’s nose and just as gentle — Wasn’t it pretty?

When our thoughts mingled into one and you reached out your hand to me

In the center, there was drawn the two-lipped figure of a heart — Wasn’t it pretty?

We walked together like mountains forming on an otherwise quiet plane

Thinking it was tectonic forces which had brought us together — Wasn’t it pretty?

Maybe one day the sun will rise again over the horizon and my face will feel like a sunflower before it is picked

Maybe one day another will offer me a heart on a palm and will we become new mountains rising from an otherwise quiet plane

Wouldn’t that be pretty?

The last lines of The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway have always struck me as being particularly poignant and provided the inspiration for the opening lines of as well as the repeating phrase of my ghazal:

“Oh, Jake,” Brett said, “we could have had such a damned good time together.”
Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly pressing Brett against me.
“Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

For those unfamiliar with the Hemingway canon (Spoiler Alert!), this story follows the romantic tragedy of two main characters – Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley — across the exciting backdrop of 20th century France and Spain. The two might very well be the loves of each of their lives, but they spend the majority of their time scheming plots for one another’s romantic and career interests, until ultimately, they are each left alone — destined to live their lives apart. The Sun Also Rises is written from the point of view of Jake and so, at times, it demonizes Brett for her actions – namely not wanting to be tied down to a singular, impotent male figure for the entirety of her life.

My ghazal is written keeping the general idea of a shared but impossible love in mind, but I have left the both of the mentioned characters in the ghazal genderless — in keeping with Persian linguistic practices and to allow for ambiguity in who the characters might be. Unique to the poem, especially considering the way in which Hemingway demonizes Brett in favor of Jake, is the way in which sympathy is given to both characters. The speaking character remembers the unspeaking character fondly, and while there is clearly a longing for the love of the unspeaking character (which has been lost for some unnamed reason), they maintain hope that there might be another who will fill the vacancy that the absence of the love of the unspeaking character has left.

In terms of constructing the ghazal itself, the constants that I knew I wanted to keep throughout were: the use of vivid imagery with a tactile, emotional quality; a general theme of love that was alternately given and unrequited; and the repeating line which paid homage to another great work of art. Thankfully, I think that I have succeeded in keeping with these goals, although I did find the writing process to be more difficult than anticipated.

There are a few things I wish I could have incorporated into the piece and which I think might have contributed to making it better: I find that the English language is great for description and the inventive usage of words but it lacks the rhythmic and percussive nature of other languages which might have been traditionally used for a ghazal. Because of the musical-blending nature of the ghazal, I think it also might have been in keeping with authentic practices to have constructed a musical accompaniment for the poem, or even to have provided an audio component of the piece.

Regardless of any failings, I hope that you enjoyed reading the poem as much as I enjoyed writing it!

And if not, it is still very pretty for me to think that you have.

This project draws inspiration thematically from the story of the twelve imams in Twelver Shia Islam, wherein Muhammad is succeeded by Ali, then Hasan, then Husayn. Artistically, this project draws from two different sources:

This sun, which I found on tumblr and

the circular, water-colored based designs via the artist Roanna Wells, who recently exhibited at the Tate Modern in London with a group of impressionist artists.

The yellow sun from Tumblr reminds me of the idea of a divine inherited spark being passed through the descendants of Muhammad. I like the clean, minimal graphics of the piece as well as the cyclical nature of the rays emanating from the center.  The works by Roanna Wells feature a similar fixation on the idea of a circular figure, but play with a unique medium — watercolor — which is very special because of its diaphanous and versatile nature, as well as its recent re-acceptance to the contemporary art milieu. I love the way that she breaks down large figures into individual pixels, which again remind me of the individual nature of the 12 imams descending from Muhammad.

I took these ideas and created this:

While, clearly, I will not be exhibiting on Tumblr anytime soon (nevertheless the Tate Modern), I do still appreciate the way that this piece does help me communicate major themes relating to Twelver Shiism. I kept the cyclical motion and the sun motif of the first drawing and used the varying colors and medium of Roanna Wells’s pieces. I used a primarily green color scheme, because I was keeping in mind the color associated with Husayn and, by extension, with protagonists, in the performance of the Taziyeh. Each ray of the sun represents one of the imams, beginning with Ali, who has the longest ray since he is closest chronologically to the prophet Muhammad, and continuing throughout the 11th imam, Hasan ibn Ali. The 12th imam, because of his status as “hidden” and the story associated with his coming to earth and then disappearing into a cave, only to reappear at the day of judgement, has been quite literally placed inside of an occluded area to the bottom left of the image. The idea is that the 12th imam is a piece of the sun which dropped off (as I feel that the gradual diminuendo of the length of the rays gives the sun the illusion of motion), was hidden, but still burns brightly and will one day be found.

This post was inspired by Week 4, which discussed the Isra and the Miraj — the night journey the prophet Muhammad took in one night from the Kaaba to the area of the current Dome of the Rock — from Mecca to Jerusalem — and then up into heaven. We read a few versions of this story in class, which lays claim to the cultural studies approach we take to understanding the tradition, as different regions appear to have slight variations in how the story of the Isra and the Miraj is told.

While the story varies, I thought what was most interesting about it was shared by all of the renditions we read — the dreamlike quality necessitated by the experience being a night journey. The other crucial element of the story seems to me to be the act of journeying itself, an act that is linked to religious pilgrimages and which can also be read more metaphysically as being a progression of the spirit or soul to a higher, more enlightened realm.

This being so, and given, again, my predisposition towards art and architectural history, I wanted to capture these ideas by using popular artistic imagery provided by Vincent Van Gough’s Starry Night.

Vincent Van Gough’s “Starry Night” — taken from art.com

I wanted, in my image, to utilize the two architectural symbols associated with Mecca and Jerusalem, which are often popularized in imagery which depicts the Isra & Miraj — the Kaaba and the Dome of the Rock. Between the two, I wanted to add movement in the sky by way of imagined pools of light and air (in an attempt at a Van Gough homage) to signify the movement of Muhammad and the ethereal, otherworldly, dream-like-yet-real quality of his journey. I utilized chalk pastels in lieu of Van Gough’s oils to acquire the soft, dreamy mood I wanted to convey.

While I am happy with this image and its alternating sense of movement and stillness and do not regret the lack of the physical bodies of Muhammad, Gabriel, or Buraq (key characters in the story of the Isra, who I visually omitted for the sake of focusing on symbols associated with locations), were I to make an addendum, I would provide some form of movement upward, to coincide with the act of Muhammad’s ascension (Miraj). However, this was not possible given constraints in paper space and in ideation of how that might be able to occur without compromising the aesthetic vision of the piece.

This post was inspired by the Week 6 discussion readings which engaged the idea of the significance of mosque decor and encouraged a friendly debate within section among the students, who were divided between defending positions held by S. H. Nasr, from their Islamic Art & Spirituality and Gülru Necipoğlu’s The Topkapı Scroll – Geometry and Ornament in Islamic Architecture. My own post, in which I hope to explore 3 geometries and/or arabesque patterns in watercolor, is more inspired by Necipoğlu’s approach to the topic.

Early in her argument, Necipoğlu situates the discussion of Chapter II of her book by discussing the canon Western-imposed discourse surrounding the islamic geometries of arabesque patterns. This academic discourse largely served to “other” the artistic expressions of the orient and to attribute to it some separate and lesser quality than artistic religious expressions of the west: Oftentimes, the islamic tradition was “assigned a purely decorative function that differed fundamentally from the iconographic tradition of Western, representational art,” which alleged that the geometric arabesque design is devoid of meaning and facilitated its appropriation by modern European architects and industrial designers. (Necipoğlu 63).

Necipoğlu characterizes much of the literature written regarding islamic geometries as falling under the aforementioned “ahistorical discourse of Orientalism,” as well as aligning with prevailing 19th and 20th century European discourse which seeks to find universal design principles (Necipoğlu 71). Likewise, I stand with Necipoğlu’s point regarding this predominant mode of discourse; however, I do not feel that I have read enough literature or have seen enough images on this particular subject to make a solid explanation of or defense of islamic geometries — their origins, purposes, independent regional developments, or overarching themes — and do not want to risk falling into the Western academic canon myself.

Because of this, I decided to do what I know best as a result of a few of my classes on architecture — draw the geometries to get a better understanding of their visual juxtapositions in terms of shape and color. I attempted to draw, with watercolor pencils, this design:

taken from a mosque in Yazd, Iran. However, I found that the geometries were too complex for my limited color-pencil abilities. In drawing this, I made one poor attempt at capturing the whole of the image, which I then abandoned after noticing its complete lack of symmetry and inability to capture even a microcosm of the geometric essence at the heart of the design. In lieu of this I sought to focus singularly on the mid-section of the design and build outwards, in hopes of retaining more of a semblance of geometry.

While I do not have literature to back me up and while I recognize the potential scroll-like, plant-themed decorative origins of these arabesque geometries, I do think that there must be some connection between these images and the divine nature of God primarily because of the sheer difficulty and expertise it takes to craft a design like this by hand — especially without the assistance of modern graphic design software!

There are two Quranic verses that I have encountered that have really captured my imagination: Sura 24:35 and 2:115. Using the Sahih International translation, they are as follows,

24:35 Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The example of His light is like a niche within which is a lamp, the lamp is within glass, the glass as if it were a pearly [white] star lit from [the oil of] a blessed olive tree, neither of the east nor of the west, whose oil would almost glow even if untouched by fire. Light upon light. Allah guides to His light whom He wills. And Allah presents examples for the people, and Allah is Knowing of all things.

2:115 And to Allah belongs the east and the west. So wherever you [might] turn, there is the Face of Allah. Indeed, Allah is all-Encompassing and Knowing.

Considering these phrases, I knew that I wanted to make a calligraphic project that encompassed the ideas of God as Light and God as all-Encompassing and therefore, infinite. I am very interested in contemporary art and so am familiar with the works of the Japanese artist, Yayoi Kusama, who is known for working with the concept of “infinity mirrors.” Infinity mirrors use two reflective surfaces to create the effect of images continuing on eternally. This effect is multiplied when a light source — typically LED for its brightness capabilities — is used between the reflective surfaces, because it makes the effect more apparent to the human eye. Knowing this, but having never tackled creating an infinity mirror myself, I set out to try to make my own infinity mirror to reflect the light of Allah.

Yayoi Kusama at Cleveland Museum of Art, taken from Cleveland.com

Instead of using the word “Allah” to designate God, I wanted to use the word used in Sura 24:35, “An-Nur” which we learned of in lecture as being one of the 99 names of Allah/God. My original intention was to have the lights incorporated into the calligraphic spelling of the name of Allah/An-Nur. However, I learned that LED lights are difficult to maneuver into any kind of rounded form and found that when I did so, I could not get the circuit to light up. This being the case, I settled on writing “An-Nur” in white, attaching it to the mirror on the back, and aligning the lights across the border so that they provided a frame to emphasize the name of God.