Make my heart stop
The first gallery of the new Islamic wing at the Metropolitan Museum is like a bazaar- a collection of stunning, eye-opening objects from across the temporal and spatial expanse of Islamic civilization. It is – to use another metaphor- designed as a plate of hor d’ovres, designed to whet our appetite. My eye first noticed some lines of Koranic verse, in an elongated script which contorted the usual flickering of Arabic into an almost block like solidity. The caption explained that these early Koranic texts were rendered into this unusual script in an attempt to fit each verse into the length of a line. At its earliest moments, this religion which was so concerned with the temptation of images reflects a deep and pervasive aesthetic sensibility.
I turned around and saw a pitcher of painted blown glass. The horses (were there cavalrymen on their backs?) racing across the belly of the pitcher were painted in alternating blues and browns. However, for a moment, it seemed like these rushing steeds were floating, timeless, translucent. They existed in the here and now and yet felt ephemeral, like a dream. My heart stopped, for a split second. I thought of the care and grace –the hours and the technique-- that went into this one pitcher!
A similar aesthetic informs the lattice-work windows inviting the visitor, almost coquettishly, to peer through unto another gallery, another world.
I continued into the next gallery dedicated to Al-Andalus, Moslem Spain. Familiar and foreign. There were some beautiful bowls in the mudéjar style with the coat of arms of Castille and León in the center. Is there a better testament to the complex exchange of ideas, people and goods within the context of the bloody wars of conquest and re-conquest that marked the Spanish middle ages? There was a beautifully written Chumash, turned to its last page. The writing after all these years is so clear that my daughter was able to make out the last line- be’eynei qol Yisrael. That was another electric moment- to stand before an object that flows backwards towards the past and into the future at the same moment; a book which is like so many millions of others and at once is unique, with its elegant geometric lines framing and adorning the columns of text.
http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/galleries/islamic/450
