Seven Examples of Culture Inclusion Art II.
by Jana Švantnerová, curator of the Collections of Applied Arts Design and Architecture
The article is a continuation of the text of the same title from the beginning of 2021, in which I presented the first seven examples of culture inclusion art. As before, I searched for works that connect different cultural traditions with their subject matter, circumstances under which they were created or used. The common denominator of the individual works is their connection to Islam and its geographical, historical and social context.
Some of them can be positively perceived as inclusion, while others are an unfortunate testimony to the past, the consequences of which, in the form of misunderstanding and intolerance, haunt us to this day. It is a consequence of the fact that we tend to regard the traditions that are geographically and historically close to us as the only correct cultures and work within the zone of our emotional comfort. As I stepped out of this zone, I studied the influential book on criticism of the European view of the Islamic world. It is the book Orientalism. The Western Concepts of the Orient by Edward Said (1935–2003) from 1978. The following text is interspersed with observations and opinions, which I have adopted thanks to this inspiring reading.
This article was written within the project Inclusion Art and Culture, which the SNG initiated this year. The aim of this socially engaged project is to draw attention to the sensitive topics of the present through visual arts. At the SNG, we believe that visual arts are an ideal platform for presentation, dialogue and bringing together the diverse cultures and communities in our country. Another output of this endeavour was an event within the project Spoločná obývačka rozmanitosti (The Shared Living Room of Diversity) at the Islamic Centre Cordoba (in Bratislava), which took place on 7 October 2021. It was a presentation of works related to Islam from the collections of Slovak galleries and a subsequent discussion. The result of the search highlighted the fact that our collections have very “stereotypical” works of art, which is exactly what Said elaborated on in his book. Given the exclusivity of the European worldview, it is, therefore, not surprising that most artists of non-European origin are anonymous producers of hand-woven and knotted carpets.
I.
Carpets are a perfect testimony of what contemporary cultural theories emphasise i.e, that cultures and civilizations have a hybrid and heterogeneous character. Nowadays, the often repeated expression “the clash of civilizations” is not correct. The fact that we are more aware of “clashes” is probably because they occur more frequently and with greater intensity, accelerated by the possibilities of travel and spread of information. Human inventions have outmatched their creators, and the frequency of inventing new things outpaced our ability to adopt them into our lives and adapt to them. Let us go back to the carpets. Persian and Turkish rugs reached Europe as early as 1300, but their “boom” did not begin until the Renaissance, when artists began to display them in the interiors of secular and religious scenes. Sunni Islam bans depicting humans and animals, while the Shia branch of Islam approves depictions of living creatures in decorative arts. Shia Islam prevailed in Persia, present-day Iran. Shah Abbas the Great (1587–1629) authorised the depiction of human figures, animals, and hunting scenes in Persian carpets in order to satisfy the growing interest of European clients, and attune to their taste. His court gathered the best masters, whose carpet patterns showed inspiration from ceramics and book miniatures. Persia dominated the carpet market in the 17th century. In the following century, Turkey took the lead and over the course of two centuries, new production centres were established alongside the older ones. Both countries flexibly responded to the customers’ demands and adapted their production to the latest fashion. Thus, in addition to geometric and plant motifs, Turkish export carpets featured animals typical of Persia. A later example of this trend is a carpet with several motif fields depicting a mosque with a minaret, nature and animals from Kayseri (Central Anatolia, Turkey) from the SNG collections. The export production represented the tastes of customers from Western Europe and not the population that produced them.
Carpets have become one of the hallmarks of comfort and luxury in Europe. They were a prudent investment in art, as well as souvenirs from the tours and travels of the aristocrats, scholars, adventurers and artists. One of such travellers was the painter Karl Ludwig (Karol Ľudovít) Libay (1814–1888), the son of the famous goldsmith Samuel Libay from Banská Bystrica. He also captured the atmosphere of the carpet shop at Khan al-Khalili Bazaar in Cairo.
II.
Libay came to Egypt thanks to his reputation as an excellent landscape painter and his previous work for Count Joseph Breuner. Together with the Austrian diplomat and Arabist Alfred von Kremer, they took this tour in 1855–1856. Upon Libay’s return, two albums were released with a different number of chromolithographs. Libay did all the drawings, the prints were done by several other artists. Alfred von Kremer provided the text for these pictures. It was one of many white man expeditions to Egypt. In the middle of the 19th century, it was a fashionable travel destination, which replaced Italy as the previous popular destination. A white wealthy man on the tour was in the role of a noble man and an experience-hungry consumer. Libay depicted such a man at a belly dance performance. Alfred von Kremer added to the picture that dancers and singers represented remnants of the pre-Islamic tradition in contemporary Muslim Egypt. Although their activities were not permitted by Muslim law, they were an integral part of the local folklore and were a must at large family celebrations.
At about the same time when Libay explored Egypt, there lived also a belly dancer and courtesan called Kuchuk Hanem by the Europeans (Turkish ‘little lady’). She became the inspiration for the writer Gustav Flaubert, who travelled around Egypt from 1849 to 1850. He made her the embodiment of the typical “Oriental girl” — sensual, not very clever and loose. It is as if a visitor to Europe characterised all European women on the basis of a cabaret and brothel visit to Montmartre in the late 19th century.
In European literary and fine arts works, we find frequent links between the “Orient” and sex and erotic fantasies, where a woman is usually the product of a male-dominant fantasy.
Edward Said sees this as a reflection of the European bourgeois worldview, which seeks and finds its fantasies about sex in the mysterious “Orient”. This had not only geographical but also cultural and moral significance for Europeans. Sex has become a commodity just like “oriental” food, furnishing, charm, landscape, atmosphere or temperament. These expectations were automatically projected into the imaginations of travellers — seekers of these experiences. One of the first was the Venetian merchant and traveller Marco Polo (1254–1324). His book The Million on customs and conditions in Eastern countries freely combines facts with fantastic legends, while not hiding hostility towards Muhammad and followers of Islam. Adolf Born made illustrations for the Czech edition in 1989. He also succumbed to the stereotypical line of harem and belly dancing several times in his caricatures.
The history of belly dancing goes back a long way and it would be a shame to reduce it to lewd looks. It is linked to ancient female fertility rituals and preparation for childbirth and was originally intended exclusively for female audiences. With the suppression of matriarchy by patriarchy, belly dancing changed from sacred to profane. Although belly dancing performed by women in traditional Islamic countries is currently strictly taboo, there is an independent initiative that aims to return to this tradition and cultivate it among Muslim women. One such belly dance revivalist is Fawzia Al-Rawi, a native of Iraq who has lived in Vienna for a long time. She is a teacher of belly dancing as well as Sufism, Islamic mysticism, which aims to merge with God through breathing, singing and dancing.
III.
In the Slovak collections, we find several depictions of mosques and minarets in the towns of Siklós, Pécs and Eger, which survived from the period of Ottoman expansion and the presence of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th and 17th centuries.These pictures originate from the period when Libay visited Egypt. The Ottoman expansion was not Europe’s first contact with Islam. After Muhammad’s death in 632, Islam gradually gained dominance in Persia, Egypt, Turkey, North Africa, Spain, Sicily, parts of France, and from the 13th century it expanded to India, Indonesia, and China. Europe responded to this development with fear. After the Battle of Mohács in 1526, the Ottoman Empire became a neighbour and greatly influenced our country (then Upper Hungary). There are so many depictions (in fine arts) and testimonies (in literature) from the history of Ottoman Islam in European culture that the threat of Islam is omnipresent in European civilization. The resurrection of the Islamic threat today is the threat of jihad and the fear that Muslims will gain dominance over the world. Such shared history is not an ideal ground for establishing mutual relations and it is not possible to start with a clean slate. Therefore, we must learn to work with historical memory, to avoid fabricated collective identities and collective guilt.
What is the current state of the Ottoman heritage depicted in the afore-mentioned prints? In Siklós, the Mosque of Malkoc Bey serves as a museum of carpets and traditional Ottoman clothing, as well as a meeting place for the local Muslim community. In Eger, the minaret still stands and is one of the city’s most popular tourist attractions. In Pécs, the smaller Yakovali Hasan Pasha Mosque serves the local Muslim community and the larger Mosque of Pasha Qasim has been adapted for the needs of the Roman Catholic Church. Such a change in the religious function of the object can lead to a deeper knowledge of the historical context and to deal with the past, alternatively it can serve indefinitely to nurture mutual aversions. Nevertheless, it is not unusual. Victorious religions have often built religious buildings on the sites of the defeated one. Currently it is regarded as vandalism and the destruction of international cultural heritage.
IV.
The winning side could adjust the religious object to the needs of their own confession. The construction of the highest minaret in India — Qutub Minar (more than 72 m high) in Delhi, India, utilised building material from the destroyed Hindu shrines. These were located in the fortified town of Lal Kot (Red Fortress) from the 8th century, which served in defence against Islamic expansion in the 11th century and was conquered in 1193. The minaret and the remnants of the adjacent mosque, built by local masters from the 12th to the 14th century, are the oldest examples of Islamic architecture in India and represent an amalgam of local pre-Islamic architecture and foreign architectural forms from the Arabian Peninsula.
However, not all minarets are what they seem to be.
One may find a minaret while strolling in the large park of the Liechtenstein estate in Lednice (Czech Republic). However, this does not mean that there was a Muslim community in Lednice. It is the result of a fascination with other “exotic” cultures that European higher society held during the 19th century. The 60 m high minaret proves that the princely family of Liechtenstein followed the fashion of the period. It was designed by the architect Josef Hardtmuth (1758–1816) and built from 1797 to 1804. As well as an architect, he was also an inventor. In 1802, he patented a formula for producing the graphite lead, laying the foundation for a modern graphite pencil company, now known as Koh-i-Noor Hardtmuth. Despite the fact that it was an observation tower used for a presentation of the non-European artefacts from the collection of the princely family, there are inscriptions from the Qur’an on the minaret. Among them is the main testimony, the creed (Shahada): “There is no deity except Allah and Muhammad is his prophet”, which is one of the five pillars of Islam. In the spirit of the fashion wave of Romanticism and Orientalism at the time, European Christians did not hesitate to use the architectural form and the most sacred texts of another religion to add a touch of authenticity to their “garden folly”. Both sites, in Moravia (Czech Republic), as well as by Delhi are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
V.
Several aspects of Islamic culture have their origins in India. The stories of The One Thousand and One Nights, which the witty and beautiful Scheherezade told the cruel King Shahryar have roots in India. It is a remarkable amalgam of folk tales from India, Persia, Arabia and Egypt. The story of Scheherazade comes from India. As early as the beginning of the 3rd century C.E., the stories reached Persia, where they were adapted to local traditions. The names of the main protagonists adopted Persian forms. Persian is also the story of the ebony horse. When the Arabs conquered Persia in the 8th century, they adapted the stories to their own worldview (Islam pushed out Zoroastrianism) and supplemented them with their own. For example, the travelogue about Sinbad was inspired by the lives of merchants and travellers at the time. After Baghdad was conquered by the Tatars, Cairo became the new homeland of the stories. This created the most extensive modifications and additions, such as the famous story of Aladdin and the miracle lamp. The stories have fascinated European readers since the early 18th century and continue to do so to this day. We owe it to the French archaeologist and Arabist Antoine Galland (1646–1715). He translated an undated Arabic manuscript, which he found at the Royal Library in Paris, where knowledge of a nascent scientific discipline called Orientalism was accumulating.
VI.
Paris also opens the door to another example of inclusion. As incredible as it may seem, Paris and other cities are triggers for specific mental states and have lent their names to some syndromes. There is Paris Syndrome, Florence-Accelerated Stendhal Syndrome and Jerusalem Syndrome. Tourists from Asia are said to suffer from the Paris Syndrome of Cultural Shock and Disappointment. The Stendhal syndrome, named after the French writer, affects visitors to Florence who are enchanted by its works of art, famous personalities and their significance for European civilization well beyond a tolerable degree. The symptoms of both syndromes are increased heart rate, sweating, fainting or disorientation. Jerusalem syndrome is even more dangerous. It is characterised by hallucinations and religious illusions. Its usual victims are mainly believers of the three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Given the concentration of key religious sites of these religions, this is not surprising. Therefore, the function of administrator and churchman in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, which shares six Christian denominations, is a truly unique example of sober and inclusive thinking.
A Muslim family is in charge of the keys to the temple, and the task to unlock and lock the church is assigned to another Muslim family. It is a calling, an honour and a mission that is passed down from generation to generation. This ritual of acquired mutual trust persists to this day. Its origin goes back to the beginning of the 16th century, when the Ottoman Empire gained control of Jerusalem and the quarrelling Christians in the church. As Islam considers Jesus to be a prophet and a Messiah, the Sultan may have decided to rebuilt the church into a mosque. The Sultan’s decision in the case of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was conciliatory and practical.
VII.
The Sultan’s attitude towards Christians was in stark contrast to how the great poet Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) perceived Muslims, the followers of the Prophet Muhammad. In The Divine Comedy, he portrayed Muhammad suffering in the penultimate circle of Hell. In Canto XXVIII:34 he describes how his torso was cut open and his innards disembowelled. The reason for this torture was supposed to be his subversive activity, given in the verses: “And all the others whom thou here beholdest, disseminators of scandal and of schism while living were, and therefore are cleft thus.”
Its wording complies with the Christian humanistic tradition that did not recognize other religions but Christianity. I think that such sad awakenings will reduce the percentage of new cases of Stendhal syndrome to which Dante, as a native of Florence, could contribute with his “divine” work. Dante also mentions Muslims elsewhere in his work. Naturally, again in the Inferno. Avicenna, Averroes and Saladin, along with other virtuous pagans such as Abraham, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, are in the first circle of hell, where they suffer punishment for failing to receive Christian enlightenment.
A new translation of Dante’s work in Dutch is going to be published this year [2021]. The translator decided to omit the passage with Muhammad in order not to offend the sentiments of Muslims. This decision has been met with diverse reactions. In my opinion, the passage should have remained in the text, but not for reasons of toothless political correctness and censorship, as critics of this decision claim. The text should be published with a presentation of the socio-historical circumstances behind its origin and the effects that such activities brought in the Christian world.
I would have chosen a similar approach in the case of Judensau at the Wittenberg Cathedral from the 13th-century. It depicts a strongly anti-Jewish mockery in which Jews suck and lick various parts of a sow’s body. Judaism regards pig as an unclean animal consumption of which is forbidden. In Germany, this is the last of more than twenty such depictions, which were a popular part of the decoration of mediaeval Christian churches. From a Christian point of view, Islam was perceived as an untrue version of Christianity. This is exactly how Judaism used to view Christianity. The difference is that Judaism never had the political power that Christianity later gained and used against “untrue new fashion” in the form of Islam and “untrue past” in the form of Judaism.
Dogmatism and orthodoxy are ubiquitous in history and Edward Said reckoned that they are one of the greatest cultural disasters of our time. Like Said, I believe that we may come to a true understanding only through critical thinking based on rational reasoning and historical data. The task of an art historian is to study the artwork thoroughly: the circumstances of its origin, the life of its creator and its broader socio-historical context in general. This approach develops openness, receptivity, effort to understand, empathy for the creator’s motives. Edward Said had a similar view about the nature of philological research, which was his academic field. Both disciplines may create space for something “different” or “foreign’, distant (geographically, historically, by subject). For something hitherto unknown.
If I have inspired you to think like this, I would like to draw your attention to two exhibition projects. The first exhibition is titled Welt Kultur / Global Culture at the State Museum of Baden in Karlsruhe, Germany. It was curated by Dr. Prof. Schoole Mostafawy, originally from Iran. Her family emigrated in the early 1980s as a result of the Iran-Iraq war. The exhibition juxtaposed our perception of otherness as an object of fascination and at the same time the fear of losing our own identity. The exhibited artefacts represent unexpected connections between different cultures and religions.
The second tip is for an exhibition at the Upper Belvedere in Vienna, focusing on three artists from the 19th-century: Raden Saleh of Java, Osman Hamdi Bey of Turkey and Hakob Hovnatanyan from present-day Georgia. As non-Europeans, their works have long been overlooked in the exhibition and research activities of this institution. Curator Markus Fellinger realised that by exhibiting these works and evaluating the historical context of their creation, he contributed to the important contemporary trend of coming to terms with the European colonisation and imperialist past.
As early as 1978, Edward Said pointed out that the political imperialism of the West had long ruled science, culture, and the arts, and, therefore, could not be ignored historically and intellectually. In his opinion, the relationship between European civilization and the Orient is mainly a relationship of power and despotism. European culture has been and often still is considered superior to all non-European nations and cultures. As part of post-colonial theory and criticism, Said advises not to use terms such as ‘Orient’ or ‘West’ readily as overarching terms. You may not have noticed, but I deliberately avoided them in this text. Did you miss them?
Bibliography:
SAID, Edward W.: Orientalismus : západní koncepce Orientu. Praha; Litomyšl : Paseka, 2008.
BURNEY, Shehla: Orientalism : The Making of the Other. In: Counterpoints. Pedagogy of the Other: Edward Said, Postcolonial Theory, and Strategies for Critique, Vol. 417, 2012, s. 23–39.
Aegypten : Reisebilder aus dem Orient : dem hochgebornen Herrn Grafen Joseph Breunner hochachtungsvoll gewidmet, nach der Natur gezeichnet und herausgegeben von Ludwig Libay. Praha : SET OUT — R. Míšek, 2006.
ZMETÁKOVÁ, Danica (ed.): Karol Ľudovít Libay (1814–1888) : Cesty a návraty na Slovensko. Bratislava : SNG, 1997.
AL-RAWI, Rosina- Fawzia: Grandmothers’s Secrets. The Ancient Rituals and Healing Power of Belly Dancing. Northampton, USA : Interlink Books, 2021
Pravila Šahrazád … Čtyřicet příběhů z knihy Tisíce a jedné noci. Praha : Státní nakladatelství krásné literatury, hudby a umění, 1955.
Z vyprávění Šahrazádiných. Praha : Odeon — nakladatelství krásné literatury a umění, 1967.
Online Sources:
https://www.mei.edu/publications/edward-said-and-two-critiques-orientalism
https://worlddanceheritage.org/birth-raqs-sharqi/
https://www.fawzia-al-rawi.com/about
http://a-repko.sk/knihy/dante/peklo.htm
Translation: Lucia Cebová
Translated at the expense of the author.
