Islamis Compare and contrast paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Islamis Compare and contrast paper - Essay Example The usak type of carpet was found to have historical sources in Bukhara area in west Turkistan. Another area of origin was in Kuhnel found in the same region. It is believed that carpet weaving began in the 3rd and 6th century BC. The carpets had elaborate designs and there was great attention to detail as seen from the intricate design found on the carpets. The weaving technique employed is known as the "Turkish knot" where the knotting technique was used instead of the traditional woven fabric. The main materials used to weave the carpets are cotton and wool. (McCarthy 146) The weaving techniques were greatly admired and were exported to various countries such as Egypt and Spain. The carpets were also featured in the paintings of artists in Europe where they had been exported. These carpets had detailed kufik designs and also animal designs such as the dragon in battle with the phoenix, which is one of the bold and popular designs found on the carpets. These designs were used to frame the carpet. They also had intertwining flowers designs and featured in the 15th and 16th century. The carpet designs consisted of a rumi-palmatte background with pattern of diamonds and octagons giving a dramatic and beautiful finish to the carpet. Contours, which were submerged, and alternating in diagonal, were also incorporated. The carpets also had diamonds, octagons and crucci incorp... (Brown 456) The usak type of carpets also had stars and medallions as part of their elaborate decorations. The medallion usaks were decorated using designs from books and book covers. The star usak had eight pointed stars in the design with medallion shaped like diamonds alternating in the design. The carpets had different colors incorporated into their designs; the dominant shape was a rectangular shape. A description of a typical design of a usak carpet has a field which is dark blue and has red octagonal or lozenge shaped medallions surrounded by a strip of yellow and blue; the entire pattern is enclosed by large squares. At the corner of the there are quarter lozenges which interact at the corners and are red. The wide border with kufic designs has symmetrically arranged squares and is light blue in color on a dark blue background with a meandering shape. The narrow borders have floral motifs which are purple with a crimson background and include schematic yellow leaves on each side arranged in rows pointing in an alternating pattern upwards and downwards. The field is bordered by a pattern of broken's' which is yellow on a light brown background. The colors used on the carpets were made from vegetable dyes. The colors were significant as they were used top describe various aspects of the Islam religion. The colors were seven in total with the number seven considered sacred in Islam. Each color had a specific meaning yellow is associated with the faith of man, dark blue with beneficience,green with tranquility, light blue with trust, red with gnosis and blue with ecstatic bewilderment. The hereke carpet had a design described as naturalistic designs came about in the 16th and 17th century when the

Arts and Urban Life Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Arts and Urban Life - Essay Example Punch's versifier detailed 'The muck and mud that still our movements clog', while Conrad made the same point more sonorously in describing 'the enormity of cold, black, wet, muddy, inhospitable accumulation of bricks, slates, and stones, things in themselves unlovely and unfriendly to man." (Freeman, 89). The city of London is perhaps one of the oldest yet also one of the most powerful cities in the world. This account speaks about the atmosphere, weather, but not the people. All urban histories states about the city in terms of physical structures and ultrastructural layouts. When the reality is that the people of the city and their lives day in and day out constitute the core of urban life, which embodies their struggle, aspirations, and moments of heightened awareness, then art in the urban life in any form will also express those. In the detective fiction of Arthur Conan Doyle or Richard Harding Davis, fog underlay or encouraged the city's criminal associations, with Sherlock Holmes speculating as to how the 'thief or murderer could roam London' 'as the tiger does the jungle', since figures are but 'dimly seen, then blend once more into the cloud bank' (Doyle, CA, 913). The question arises, what is a city, is it the demonstrable difficulties of urban life, its malign incompatibility with human wishes, or entirely something else arising out of it. In some cases, the metropolis itself has been assigned a character in itself, which responds enthusiastically to the process of transformation in the city space and the ways it is perceived by the individual. Radical artists such as Whistler and Monet were exploring similar possibilities during the 1870s. Such figures moved away from the particularization of realist art and conventional topographic painting, concerning themselves with atmospheric evocation. James's immersion, in all senses, in London's fog was therefore something he shared with its most famous visual chroniclers, impressionist painters, even though he initially had little obvious sympathy for their art (James, 219). Accounts of London by Dickens, and, even more so, by Gissing, repeatedly emphasized the city's aromas and the tidal roar of its 'flaring and clamorous' streets where 'the odors of burning naphtha and fried fish were pungent on the wind'. To judge from The Princess Casamassima, the Thames is equally noisy and smelly, with Hyacinth (Gissing, 111), Robinson observing the 'grinding, puffing, smoking, splashing activity of the turbid flood', but in his own trip down river, James concentrates on the tonal limitation s of the scene, its blacks and sables, silvers and grays (Jackson, 277). Baldwin's "Another Country" is a novel, but more of an essay on love. Love on the backdrop of a city, where life at least takes the form of impressionist art. Love is a theme that the author had explored both on homosexual and heterosexual perspectives. On closer examination, there is another theme in this novel, racialism. While love is a necessity and is utterly constructive, hate is terribly destructive, and this theme is core concept