Manuscript Illumination in Islamic and Western Traditions

Graduate / Professional

This course introduces students to the processes of manuscript production across Western and Islamic traditions in the premodern world. It offers a mixture of lectures, reading-based discussions, and practical sessions that provide students with the opportunity to work through the steps of illuminating a manuscript. During lectures, digital facsimiles of specific manuscripts are shown, and students analyze them during the discussion. Students learn drawing and painting stylized floral motifs, animals, and abstract patterns used in Islamic and Western manuscript paintings from a comparative perspective. Materials used in traditional book arts are studied in detail as well. Students create pigments and learn design techniques. As a practice-based course, it explores the development and transmission of artisanal knowledge in the premodern and early modern periods. In placing Islamic (Arabic, Ottoman, and Persian) and Western illumination traditions (mainly French, Flemish, and English late medieval) in conversation, this course seeks to provide students with a comparative and interdisciplinary understanding of how tacit knowledge developed in different traditions. In addition to developing painting skills through individualized attention and support in class, a scheduled visit to the Beinecke Library enhances applied learning by encouraging students to examine artistic aspects of book arts in Western and Islamic manuscripts. Th 4pm-5:55pm