Arab Painting: Text and Image in Illustrated Arabic Manuscripts
Arab painting , preserved mainly in manuscript illustrations of the 12th to 14th centuries , is here treated as an artistic corpus fully deserving appreciation in its own terms , and not as a mere precursor to Persian painting . The book asembles papers by a distinguished list of scholars that illuminate the variety of material that survives in scientific as well as literary manuscripts . Because of the contexts in which the paintings appear , a majpr theoretical concern is , precisely , the relationship of painting to text . It rejects earlier scholarly habits of analysing paintings in isolation , and proposes the integration of text and image as a more satyisfactory framework within which to elucidate the characteristics and functions of this impressive body of work .
