World Cultures I- Week 5 and 6

Week5. Question 1: Discussion 1: Islam and Christianity Made Visual

Islamic calligraphy at Alhambra and Christian mosaics at Dome of the Rock

The Dome of the Rock is the testimony of architecture that we have the size to the three great monotheistic religions. In its major characteristics the Dome of the rock follows the architectural practices of the Christian empire (Gardner, et al. 2006). It belongs to the category of centrally planned buildings known as martyria and, as has often been pointed out, bears a particularly close relationship to the great Christian sanctuaries of the Ascension and the Anastasis. Mosaics Wall and marble facings were common in Christian sanctuaries. The endless variations on vegetal subjects, from the realism of certain trees to highly conventionalized garlands and scrolls to all-over carpet-like patterns, are mostly related to the many mosaics of Christian times in Syria and Palestine (Gardner, et al. 2006).

The pious men of Islam wanted early calligraphy the Qur'an as the Christian monks had, themselves, handwritten Bible and the Gospels. Calligraphy from the Koran joined arabesques and interlaced on the facades of mosques in Samarkand, Bukhara, Isfahan, Cairo, and to the Alhambra through Baghdad, Jerusalem and many other places (Pérez-Gómez, 1987). Despite the prohibition of representing figures in Islamic art, the decorative motifs of the Alhambra are very varied. Classical calligraphic decoration is used, including cursive and Kufic script which reproduced lyrics Zawi ben Ziri (founder of the Nasrid dynasty): "God is the only winner" and the poems of several poets of the Court. We recognize in these pious formulas several Quranic formulas, either fixed or mixed, which would suggest that the Koran is not the time of the Umayyad untouchable it will look afterwards (Pérez-Gómez, 1987).

Week5. Question2. Discussion 2: The Medieval Experience

Pilgrimage

If I had been living in Europe during Middle Ages, I would have chosen pilgrimage to go. The pilgrim, the Western Middle Ages called "peregrinus", is a character of all time. It demands a faith, or any other, it is the road that leads. He broke with his usual condition; he is a stranger to himself. As it passes, those who have a place to observe that advances one foot before the other, and sometimes they share with him. Receive the same. But the next day, he was already away. It was above all an act of faith; pilgrims journeyed from parish to parish to meet the eternal in a poor and wandering humanity needs, eager alms and hospitality brands (Wells, 2010). This pilgrim in the Middle Age is a vagabond of God in which a person could only rely on his intuition and his instinct.

The Bayeux Tapestry and 1066: The Battle for Middle Earth

The Bayeux Tapestry presents the embroider scenes of the Norman invasion of England and the Battle at Hastings in 1066. The first scene of Bayeux Tapestry illustrates different events which led to the Norman invasion and the Battle of Hastings (Lewis, n.d.). The preparations and the Norman invasion fleet ...