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Micheline's Blog

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Tag Archives: Venice

Venice & Islam at the MMA, NY

20 Thursday Oct 2016

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, History, Renaissance, The Ottoman Empire, Venice

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Alexandria, Art of Venice, Gentile Bellini, Islamic Art, Metropolian Museum of Art, Venetian Art, Venetian Merchants, Venice

h2_trdr_1

Madonna and Child by Stefano Veneziano

Venice and the Islamic World, 828 – 1797

In 2007, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York exhibited works displaying

“the exchange of art objects and interchange of artistic ideas between the great Italian maritime city and her Islamic neighbors in the eastern Mediterranean.” (MMA)

Venice had been a republic until it was conquered by Napoleon in 1797. It the year 828 CE ,

“two Venetian merchants stole St Mark‘s hallowed body from Muslim-controlled Alexandria and brought it to their native city, and 1797, when the city fell  to the French conqueror Napoleon[.]” (MMA)

We could give our story two starting-points. In the last decades of the 13th century, Venetian Marco Polo (1254 – 8/9 January 1324) travelled the silk road/route and reached China where he met Kublai Khan, the Mongol conqueror who would be Emperor of China. After the conquest of the Byzantine Empire, on 29 May 1453, by the Ottoman Turks, the silk road was longer used. It had deteriorated during the fragmentation of the Mongol Empire. The last merchants to use it may have died of the plague, the Black Death (1436 – 1453). In order to purchase silk, spices, coffee and other precious goods, merchants would henceforth use a sea route. Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama (c. 1460s – 24 December 1524), sailed to India following the west coast of Africa to the point, the Cape of Good Hope, where the Atlantic connects with the current Indian Ocean. A sea route had been traced.

Our topic, however, is Venice in the days when it traded with a not-too-distant Orient. So our second starting-point is Gentile Bellini‘s 1479 visit to Istanbul, where he made the portrait of Mehmed II, the Conqueror. Mehmed II was an Ottoman Turk and a Muslim. The people of the Byzantine empire had been Christians who spoke koine Greek. We barely remember there was an Anatolia, which, to a large extent, became modern-day Turkey. After Word War I, Constantinople was occupied. The Ottoman Empire had fallen, but Turkey declared its War of Independence (1919 – 1923) and won. The Ottoman Empire had fallen, but Turkey rose. (See Turkish War of Independence, Wikipedia.)

In 1453, Greek scholars fled to Italy (Venice to begin with), carrying books and they inaugurated the Renaissance, but the defeat of the Byzantine Empire was the fall the Holy See of Orthodox Christianity. It had been the eastern Rome. The fall of Constantinople was, therefore, mostly catastrophic. During the first millennium, the Byzantine Empire had been Arabised and during the second millennium, it would be turkified. Both Arabs and Ottoman Turks were Muslims. Mehmed II conquered the Christian Byzantine Empire in Anatolia and went on to conquer several Christian countries now located in Eastern Europe. Repercussions would be felt for centuries to come.

Venice “mirrored” the East, but the East would also “mirror” the West. In fact, the art the Byzantine Empire resembles Islamic art. Venice lacks minarets and an obélisque, but barely so. It is all lace or arabesques, arched windows and entrances, bas-reliefs, decorative tiles and domes. Venice begins in Alexandria, Egypt.

“Venice is also often referred to as ‘the mirror of the East’ because her architecture and urban plan incorporate typical Islamic features and ornamental flourishes.” (MMA)

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St Mark preaching in Alexandria by Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, 1504-7 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

800px-veneza47

Basilica di San Marco, Venice

8e2c56ea994cea09ecf8299e208ab189

Church of the Holy Apostles, Istanbul, Turkey (see Pinterest)

Works Exhibited at the MET

Venetian and Islamic works exhibited at the MMA were “[g]lass, textiles, carpets, arms and armor, ceramics, sculpture, metalwork, furniture, paintings, drawings, prints, printed books, book bindings, and manuscripts[.]” (MMA)

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Reception of the Venetian Ambassadors in Damascus by Gentile Bellini, 1511, Louvre (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
h5_1992_51
A Stallion by Habiballah of Sava, Afghanistan, 1601-6
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1992.51/

hb_55_121_35

Chilins (Chinese Chimerical Creatures) fighting with a Dragon, Istanbul, 16th century

Chinese Chimerical Creatures fighting with a Dragon (Chilins), Istanbul, 16th century
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/55.121.35/

hb_55_121_23

A Portuguese, Iran, mid 17th century

A Portuguese, Iran, mid 17th century
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/55.121.23/

dp240659

Woman Applying Henna, Iran, 17th century

Woman Applying Henna, Iran, 17th century

http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/451308?sortBy=Relevance&deptids=14&ft=*&offset=140&rpp=20&pos=156

dp234083

The Concourse of Birds by Habiballah of Sava, Iran, c. 1600

The Concourse of Birds by Habiballah of Sava, Iran, c. 1600
http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/451725

sf45-174-18r

Woman Carrying a Vase, Iran, 17th century

Woman carrying a Vase, Iran, 17th century
http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/450600?sortBy=Relevance&deptids=14&ft=*&offset=40&rpp=20&pos=60

dp107186

“The Angel Surush Rescues Khusrau Parviz from a Cul-de-sac”
Bashdan Qara (active c. 1525–35)
http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/452182

Jean Chardin’s Testimonial

Jean Chardin, a French jeweler who traveled throughout Iran in 1664–70 and again in 1671–77, exclaimed that Isfahan was “the greatest and most beautiful town in the whole Orient.” He described the city’s population as a mix of Christians, Jews, fire-worshippers, Muslims, and merchants from all over the world. He counted 162 mosques, 48 colleges, 802 caravanserais, 273 baths, and 12 cemeteries, indicating ‘Abbas’ extensive architectural work in the city. Among the most scenic quarters was the area behind the Ali Qapu, where a series of gardens extended to the Chahar Bagh, a long boulevard lined with parks, the residences of nobles, and the palaces of the royal family. Tile panels and frescoes from the pavilions of the Chahar Bagh in the Museum’s collection are examples of the lavish decoration of these structures. (MMA)

Comments

Venice and the Islamic world is a very long story. It includes, for instance, the use of a lingua franca, a simplified hybrid language, mostly Italian, that was understood in every port in the Mediterranean Basin.

It also tells the story of the compulsory trip to the Orient young Venetians undertook. I should also stress the notion of exchange. It was not exploitation of the Orient but an exchange. The word “mirror,” used above, is appropriate. For instance, Venetians imitated the glass made in the Orient until Muslims bought Venetian glass for their Mosques. We could even suggest that the love for all things oriental, “turquerie” in our case, preceded 18th-century Europe. Merchants travelling to the Orient brought back souvenirs.

Works displayed in the exhibition depict a mostly joyful and somewhat diverse Orient as do the texts written for visitors to the exhibition. Each text leads to another text. The Orient, Syria for instance, was home to local and old Christian communities: Assyrians, Armenians, and Egypt, home to Coptic Egyptians, etc.

I discovered a Bellini album. It seems Gentile Bellini was the first Orientalist, but of a different breed than 19th-century Orientalists (see Orientalism, Wikipedia). Yet, the conquest of Constantinople was a catastrophe. It divided the population of the various countries of Eastern Europe between Christians and Muslims, and this fragmentation was reflected in the wars that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

I am omitting the works of European artists: Gentile Bellini and his pupils, three of whom are Giovanni di Niccolò Mansueti, Vittore Carpaccio (15th century Venice) and Giorgione (1476 – 1510). They were influenced by the Orient. So was Albrecht Dürer (21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528), who lived shortly after the fall of Constantinople.

dp815373

An Oriental Family by Albrecht Dürer, engraving

Music, the Printing Press and the Vernacular

Venice was also a turning-point in music. The Franco-Flemish lands had been the cultural hub of Europe as polyphony developed, including the madrigal, a song in the mother tongue. The Netherlandish composer Adrian Willaert (c. 1490 – 7 December 1562), of the Franco-Flemish school taught music in Venice and was the kapellmeister of the Basilica di San Marco. He founded the Venetian School, music. Polyphony is a product of the West.

In fact, the Renaissance is the birthplace of a nationhood and nationalism based on the use of a common language. Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1398 – February 3, 1468) invented the movable type printing press (c. 1440) to the delight of Venetians. It all started in Venice. As of the Renaissance, the invention of the printing press allowed the development of literature written in the vernacular, the mother tongue. Greek scholars could have the works of antiquity copied rapidly, but so did authors who wrote in the vernacular, a national language. Associated with the validation of the vernacular are Venetian Cardinal Pietro Bembo (The Petrarchan Movement), Sperone Speroni (Dialogo delle lingue, a defense of vernacular languages instead of Latin, Joachim du Bellay (Défense et illustration de la langue française) and Geoffrey Chaucer.

The relationship between the Ottoman Empire and the West deteriorated, but for a very long time, as the port central to the economy of countries bordering the Mediterranean, Venice was rich and it never fell to the Ottoman Empire.

“Despite all of the wars, Venice remained a privileged partner, thanks to an almost perfect balance between religious spirit, chameleon-like diplomacy, and acute business sense.”  (MMA)

The above quotation will be our conclusion.

Navigation

The link Venice and the Islamic World, 828 – 1797 takes one to the Bellini carpets. One then scrolls down to Venice and the Islamic World, 828 – 1797. One clicks on the link. To view each century click on Art, then Collection, and search Islamic Art or Venice and Islamic Art. We are exploring West Asia, various centuries, and the MMA refers to Constantinople as Istanbul, its name since 1928.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cedr/hd_cedr.htm# (trade)

Love to everyone. ♥

RELATED ARTICLES

Language

  • Pietro Bembo by Titian, and the Vernacular (27 January 2016)
  • La Pléiade: Joachim du Bellay (30 December 2011)
  • The Petrarchan Movement (6 December 2011)

Orientalism

  • An Older Orient (18 September 2016)
  • Orientalism Good & Bad (14 September 2016)
  • Orientalism Good or Bad (7 September 2016)

Venice

  • Veneţia (Ştefania)

Sources and Resources

  • Venice and the Islamic World, 828 – 1797
  • Wikipedia (most entries)
  • Britannica

—ooo—

“Calligraphic Composition in Shape of Peacock,” Folio from the Bellini Album
http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/451978?sortBy=Relevance&ft=Islamic+Art&offset=1280&rpp=20&pos=1297

dt4838

© Micheline Walker
20 October 2016
WordPress

map_of_venice_15th_century

The True Moor of Venice (a lecture)
Michael Barry: “The Three Philosophers ”
MMA

giorgione_029b

The Three Philosophers by Giorgione, finished by Titian the MMA)

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Making an Oriental Carpet

07 Friday Oct 2016

Posted by michelinewalker in Orientalism, The Ottoman Empire

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Armenian carpets, Islam, Kilims, The Bellini Carpets, The Czartoryski Carpet, The Ghazir Orphan Rug, The Gohar Carpet, Venice

ghazir_rug

Armenian Orphan Rug, the “Ghazir,” 1926 (Wikipedia)

The Ghazir Orphan Rug

In every civilization, fabric and carpets have been woven, not to mention baskets. Persian rugs are the nec plus ultra and may cost millions. With the advent of computers, it may be that making a carpet can be programmed. But will it show little animals, flowers, whirling lines, etc.

Persian carpets have ‘pile.’ The pile, wool or silk, or other material, is knotted and it stands upwards. However, the warp is one’s first component. The warp is a vertical thread, often simple cotton, but it must be strong cotton. It holds the knots. Yet, some rugs are made entirely of silk. The weft or woof is the horizontal part of the rug or tapestry. The wool or silk can be inserted manually, with a thick needle, but a shuttle is very practical. The flying shuttle was invented by John Kay (17 June 1704 – c. 1779) in 1733. It goes back and forth mechanically.

Warp and Weft
Warp and Weft
Kilim slit weave
Kilim slit weave
Turkish and Persian knots
Turkish and Persian knots
Flat weave & Pile weave
Flat weave & Pile weave

1-2-3-4 (left to right, both rows)

Rugs with pile

  • woven rugs warp and weft (woof) (illustration, 1)
  • rugs with pile

Kilims are woven rugs. They combine warp and weft and are flat. In carpets with pile, the pile (standing upwards) is knotted around the warp  (see illustration above, 4) and one combs it down evenly. At this point, one can insert silver, gold and precious gems. There may be rows of plain weft separating knotted wefts (see illustration below, 5). That choice depends on the thickness and density one wishes to give the rug.

Turkish Ghiordes knots
Turkish Ghiordes knots
Tying the fringe
Tying the fringe

5-6 (left to right)

The rug’s pattern and its motifs are designed on paper (a carton). One must be very careful. If the wool, silk or other material in kilims is coloured the colours may be introduced separately. It is as if one made slits (see the illustration above, 2). One has to know exactly how many rows of weft and knots will be required to make a flower or a rabbit or a geometrical design. To make sure the surface of the rug is even one cuts the wool or silk in equal lengths. But one may shape the wool or silk after the rug is woven. Chinese rugs are often carved and the effect is stunning.

At the two extremities of the rug one leaves a few rows of cotton, or other material, woven (the weft) horizontally and a fringe (the warp). These few rows do not contain knots and are woven tightly. The fringe (the warp) may be knotted (see illustration above, 6).

Preliminaries

  • carding the wool
  • spinning the wool
  • using a mordant
  • colouring the wool

There are, of course, preliminaries. One must card (comb) the wool. To my knowledge that is done before the wool is washed. There are instructions on the internet according to which one washes the wool before it is carded. Unwashed wool contains a form of glue without which one cannot spin the wool.

Spinning determines the thickness of the wool. A mere hand spindle will produce good wool. In fact, so will a pencil. But there are spinning wheels. The goal is to twist the wool into a form of thread. It is possible to produce carpet bags, or prayer rugs, sitting in one’s living-room. One builds a frame and drives in little nails (finishing nails) at both ends, or extremities. The nails hold the warp (vertical).

To colour the wool, one first uses a mordant (mordre: to bite), such as copper, to fix the dye. The wool is put in the mordant and one lets it soak. Once the wool has absorbed its mordant, it is possible to fix the dyes. They will hold. If one puts the wool in onion skins dipped in water, one produces various golds. One uses cochineal (a crushed insect) to obtain reds and pinks, depending on the mordant one has used. Indigo is popular colour.

Basically, oriental rugs are made as described above, but techniques may vary from country to country. Large carpets require large looms. They are made in more spacious facilities and the process is time-consuming. Haida Amerindians living on the west coast of Canada make waterproof textile and use it to transport water. The Haida people are superb artists.

dp166876

Turkey, Carpet with Triple-arch Design (1575 -90)

http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/447509?sortBy=Relevance&what=Rugs&ft=Islamic+carpets&offset=0&rpp=20&pos=15

dp217887

The Czartoryski Carpet, 17th century

http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/450563?sortBy=Relevance&ft=Islamic+carpets&offset=20&rpp=20&pos=32

The Czartoryski Museum (above)

armenian_rug_gohar-2

Armenian Carpet “Gohar”

with Armenian inscription, 1700, Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabagh) (Wikipedia)

bellini-2-carpet

The Bellini Carpets (MMA, NY)

Venice and the Islamic World, 828 – 1797 (click to see the Bellini carpets)

Conclusion

I wish to thank our colleague Bryan Hemming for letting me know about the Gentile Bellini knot. I would have to find a manual to see how the Bellini knot is made. By and large, two kinds of knots are used in weaving carpets, which does not preclude using other knots (see illustration at the top, 3 & 5).

We’ve barely entered Venice. It is the West’s first connection with the Ottoman Orient and it is part of a trade route. Glass was/is also made in Venice or just off Venice, the lovely Murano glass. The “Silk Animal Carpet,” shown below, is housed in the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/446642

A long time ago, I learned how to make carpets and tapestries. I still have a supply of wool I made from ‘a’ to ‘z’. I have repaired damaged carpets.

Love to everyone. ♥

dp229989

Silk Animal Carpet, Iran, 16th century

© Micheline Walker
7 October 2016
WordPress

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The Squarcialupi Codex & Francesco Landini

24 Thursday Nov 2011

Posted by michelinewalker in Music

≈ Comments Off on The Squarcialupi Codex & Francesco Landini

Tags

ballate, domes, Florence, illuminated manuscript, Italian ars nova, Landini, Petrarch, Squarcialupi Codex, trouvères, Venice

Francesco Landini

The Squarcialupi Codex  (Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Pal. 87) is a compendium of pieces of music.  It was published in Florence in the Trecento, the fourtheenth-century or the dawn of Italian Renaissance.

Surprisingly, it contains 216 pieces of music.  I have extracted  the following information from Wikipedia, not a frivolous source.  On the contrary!

Included in the Codex‘s 216 pieces are 146 pieces by Francesco Landini, 37 by Bartolino da Padova, 36 by Niccolò da Perugia, 29 by Andrea da Firenze, 28 by Jacopo da Bologna, 17 by Lorenzo da Firenze, 16 by Gherardello da Firenze, 15 by Donato da Cascia, 12 pieces by Giovanni da Cascia, 6 by Vincenzo da Rimini.  There are sixteen blank parchment folios which may have contained pieces by Paolo da Firenze and Giovanni Mazzuoli.

The Codex is organized according to composers and includes a richly illuminated, in blue, gold, purple and red, portrait of each composer.  The illustration I have placed above our text is from Squarcialupi Codex, shows Francesco Landini, the most prolific among composers whose pieces constitute the Florentine Codex. The Squarcialupi Codex is also a testimonial to fraternity, the raison d’être of schools.

* * *

The Squarcialupi Codex is an important document because it supplies us, in one book, with an illustrated history of Italian songs before Franco-Flemish Adriaan Willaert (c. 1490 – 7 December 1562) travelled to Venice to found the Venetian School (1550 to around 1610).  The enlumineur is unknown.

San Marco, in Venice

The Fall of the Byzantine Empire:  the Italian “ars nova”

When the Bizantine Empire was replaced by the Ottoman Empire, in 1453, scholars first travelled to Italy carrying books and a fully-fledged culture, mainly Greek. Western Europe’s Renaissance had begun and San Marco’s dome would be of Byzantine inspiration.

The Renaissance: the Italian “ars nova“

It may be useful to use the works of Francesco Landini (c. 1325 or 1335 – September 2, 1397), as the turning-point between the early Renaissance music and the Venetian School, except that Landini’s style is abundantly ornamented as would be the case with later madrigals.

Francesco Landini was blind from childhood and worked as organist in at least two Florentine churches.  He played several instruments, and built one, the ‘syrena syrenarum.’  He is protrayed above holding his portative organ or organetto.

The organetto

We also owe Landini a cadence (end of a piece of music), the eponymic Landini cadence in which the sixth degree of the scale, the ‘la’ (the sub-mediant) is inserted between the leading-note (note sensible [sensitive] in French), the ‘si’, and the tonic (the ‘do’) = si-la-do.

Landini wrote twelve madrigals and may have written sacred music, but the compostions we know are secular. Most are ballate in two or three voices and are included in the Squarcialupi Codex.

The ballata finds its origins in the songs of trouvères, the virelay, in particular. However, Florentine chronicler Filippo Villani (b. 1235) describes Landini as a true Florentine.  Yet, Landini’s compostions display “madrigalism,” which is an abundance of ornamentations, including roulades.  As well, his compositions demonstrate northern influences.  According to the Encyclopædia Britannica

he [Landini] was crowned with a laurel wreath as the winner of a poetical contest at Venice in 1364. In Il Paradiso degli Alberti del 1389, Giovanni da Prato described Landini as playing his songs so sweetly “that no one had ever heard such beautiful harmonies, and their hearts almost burst from their bosoms.”[i]

In the Encyclopædia Britannica, we also read that “in addition to his 140 settings of ballate (91 for two voices, 49 for three), his surviving compositions include 12 [mentioned above] madrigals a virelay, and a caccia.”

It would appear, however, that they are early madrigals.  So let us keep away from possible Procrustean Beds.  Landini may be an example of this or that, but Landini is also Landini, a brave man who not only coped with blindness, but used hearing to everyone’s benefit.

No wonder he was a close friend of the great Petrarch (July 20, 1304 – July 19, 1374), whose sonnets are an homage to Laura de Noves (1310–1348), the wife of Hugues de Sade.  Petrarch caught a gimpse of her and started to write about her.

Laura de Noves

There always remains that unknown dimension that characterizes creativity, that seminal idea one dares to pursue…

(click to hear Ecco la primavera; Squarcialupi Codex)

____________________

[1] “Francesco Landini.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011. Web. 24 Nov. 2011. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/329369/Francesco-Landini>.

 November 24, 2011

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