IN Paris, the Cluny Museum of the Middle Ages presents a shining example of Islamic art’s influence on the West.
Featuring treasures from the Louvre, and Berlin’s Islamic Art Museum, as well as many exceptional pieces from the Cluny Museum’s vast collection, the exhibit traces the technical evolution and production of metal-glazed ceramics in a breathtaking journey through art and time.
“Oriental Golden Shimmers in the Occident: Eight Centuries of Ceramics” highlights masterworks created for the rich and powerful throughout the Muslim and Christian worlds, from the 9th to the 15th centuries.
As early as the 4th century of our era, Coptic artisans in Egypt applied a thin layer of silver and copper oxides to glass to create the appearance of shimmering gilded designs. In Samarra, present-day Iraq, opulent capital of the Abbassid caliphate in the 9th century, ceramic artists transferred the technique to glazed pottery. This innovation produced an iridescent metallic surface, sparkling in shades from yellow-gold to copper-red, when viewed from different angles.
The alliance of the lustrous metal glaze with Islamic art’s traditions of patterned design and calligraphy became a spectacular success. Samarra’s metal-glazed ceramics were highly prized by royal courts in Asia, North Africa and Europe.
Artisans in Iran, Egypt and Syria began producing metal-glazed ceramics to fulfill the increasing demand. Each culture developed its own style: More elaborate calligraphic motifs in Iran, narrative scenes in Egypt, a deep blue background for Syrian works.
Pieces were signed, and gifted ceramic artists like Muslim ibn Dahhan, in Fatimid Egypt, were renowned. In Kashan, Iran, artisans passed their knowledge and technique from father to son, and “ceramic dynasties” came into being, lasting centuries.
The Mongol invasion of Iran in the 13th century did not halt production. Genghis Khan and his descendents were so impressed with Iranian culture in general, and the metal-glazed ceramics in particular, that they maintained the ceramic studios intact and became clients, ordering metal-glazed tiles for their palaces.
Richly decorated tiles were exported from Baghdad for the construction of the Sidi Uqba Mosque in Kairouan, Tunisia. The beauty and excellent quality of these works inspired new centers of production in the Maghreb, encouraged by the Benu Hammad dynasty, founders of a brilliant, refined royal court in North Africa. The Benu Hammad’s fortified palace, or Qal’a, is known as the first to feature the striking star-and-cross tile pattern in architectural design.
Creative ideas and the metal-glazing technique spread to Andalusia, or Muslim Spain. Ceramic studios were established in Almeria, Murcia, Granada and Malaga, producing works for the Muslim world, as well as for Christian Spain, France and Britain.
Renaissance rulers in the Italian city-states of Florence, Siena and Pisa admired the pieces and began commissioning vases and platters adorned with their symbols and coats of arms. When Spanish production declined as a result of political upheavals in the 15th century, the Italians established their own studios in Gubbio and Deruta.
Though the golden age of metal-glazed ceramics ended with the Renaissance, the works continued to be produced for centuries. The Orientalist movement in the 19th century inspired a wave of imitations in major ceramic centers like Sevres, near Paris.
