Sharjah Islamic Arts Festival – 20th Edition

Event Date: 13/12/2017 - 23/01/2018
Location: Sharjah Art Museum

Sharjah Islamic Arts Festival – 20th Edition


Artwork, in itself, has an impact, and it indicates a moment of creative engagement, which continues to be evoked through the existence and the representation of the artwork. However, the more values the artwork encompasses, the more the sustainability of its impact is attained, and therefore, the more it is recognised within the human civilisation. Such everlasting impact declares the moment of creativity that evokes artists to produce extraordinary, visual, innovative representations so that through time, their effects are continuously enhanced and emphasised.

Since its very beginnings to its contemporary manifestations, the formative impact related to the various fields of Islamic art in addition to its cultural and intellectual impact has motivated the vision and imagination of many contemporary artists by urging them to investigate the various Islamic art visual effects within their modern practices. Especially, taking into account that Islamic art is known for its clear and notable impact on different human cultures that have already witnessed it throughout history, its rise, its development from many sources, and its expansion. Among its most significant impacts, Islamic art with its various fields has strongly influenced the world's sense of beauty and seems to occur in modern global visual performances increasingly.

In fact, from the 19th century, and based on Islamic art's principles and visual temptations, Western artists have mostly explored and applied Eastern visual styles within their visual research, and this was the first Eastern impact on modern and contemporary visual arts. For several centuries, Islamic art was inevitably present in many orientalists' paintings who were greatly enticed by the allure of the Orient. Figures of the public life appearing in orientalists' paintings, and the perspective of the place "employed as a background and topic of the painting" have clearly revealed Islamic art through imposing its principal elements like Islamic architecture, illumination, miniatures, floral ornamentation, along with other practical related fields and styles that are known for their massive visual influence which highlighted the spiritual, aesthetic, and creative values of the content.

 

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Exhibition Highlights