Related Research Articles
Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is the northernmost country in Africa. With the archaeological sites of Carthage dating back to the 9th century to the great mosque of Kairouan — it is a part of the Maghreb region of North Africa, and is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Known for its ancient architecture, souks and blue coasts — it covers 163,610 km2 (63,170 sq mi), and has a population of 12.1 million. It contains the eastern end of the Atlas Mountains and the northern reaches of the Sahara desert; much of its remaining territory is arable land. Its 1,300 km (810 mi) of coastline include the African conjunction of the western and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Basin. Tunisia is home to Africa's northernmost point, Cape Angela; and its capital and largest city is Tunis, which is located on its northeastern coast, and lends the country its name.
Tunisian culture is a product of more than three thousand years of history and an important multi-ethnic influx. Ancient Tunisia was a major civilization crossing through history; different cultures, civilizations and multiple successive dynasties contributed to the culture of the country over centuries with varying degrees of influence. Among these cultures were the Carthaginian – their native civilization, Roman, Vandal, Jewish, Christian, Arab, Islamic, Turkish, and French, in addition to native Amazigh. This unique mixture of cultures made Tunisia, with its strategic geographical location in the Mediterranean, the core of several civilizations of Mare Nostrum.
Islamic calligraphy is the artistic practice of handwriting and calligraphy, in the languages which use Arabic alphabet or the alphabets derived from it. It includes Arabic, Persian, Ottoman, and Urdu calligraphy. It is known in Arabic as khatt Arabi, which translates into Arabic line, design, or construction.
Princess Wijdan Ali is a Jordanian artist, art historian, educator and diplomat. She is the ex-wife of Prince 'Ali bin Naif of Jordan. She is best known for her efforts to revive the traditions of Islamic art and her abstract paintings and for her work as an art historian.
Rachid Koraïchi is an Algerian artist, sculptor, print-maker and ceramicist, noted for his contemporary artwork which integrates calligraphy as a graphic element.
Osman Waqialla, was a 20th century Sudanese painter and calligrapher, noted for his creative use of Arabic letter forms in his artworks, thereby integrating African and Islamic cultural traditions into the contemporary art of Sudan. This use of Arabic calligraphy as a modern, non-religious graphic form places Waquialla within the Arabic art movement that became known as the Hurufiyya movement.
Jordanian art has a very ancient history. Some of the earliest figurines, found at Aïn Ghazal, near Amman, have been dated to the Neolithic period. A distinct Jordanian aesthetic in art and architecture emerged as part of a broader Islamic art tradition which flourished from the 7th-century. Traditional art and craft is vested in material culture including mosaics, ceramics, weaving, silver work, music, glass-blowing and calligraphy. The rise of colonialism in North Africa and the Middle East, led to a dilution of traditional aesthetics. In the early 20th-century, following the creation of the independent nation of Jordan, a contemporary Jordanian art movement emerged and began to search for a distinctly Jordanian art aesthetic that combined both tradition and contemporary art forms.
Baron Rodolphe d'Erlanger was a French painter and musicologist, specializing in North African and Arabic music.
Rachida Triki, also known as Rachida Boubaker-Triki is a Tunisian philosopher, art historian, art critic, and art curator. She is a full professor of philosophy at Tunis University, specialized in Aesthetics.
International Exhibition of Calligraphy — a project organized by Contemporary museum of calligraphy, with the support of the Museum-educational complex Sokolniki. Its aim is the promotion of the art of calligraphy and its educational significance through exhibitions and festivals.
Wajih Nahlé, , born in Beirut, Lebanon, was a Lebanese postwar and contemporary master painter, calligrapher and sculpture who has created new and original forms of expression, a pioneer in his generation. He studied painting in the workshop of the Lebanese painter Moustafa Farroukh. Nahlé's work shows an interest for the decorative aspect of calligraphy.
Shakir Hassan Al Said (1925–2004), an Iraqi painter, sculptor and writer, is considered one of Iraq's most innovative and influential artists. An artist, philosopher, art critic and art historian, he was actively involved in the formation of two important art groups that influenced the direction of post-colonial art in Iraq. He, and the art groups in which he was involved, shaped the modern Iraqi art movement and bridged the gap between modernity and heritage. His theories charted a new Arabic art aesthetic which allowed for valuations of regional art through lenses that were uniquely Arabic rather than Western.
Ibrahim El-Salahi is a Sudanese painter, former public servant and diplomat. He is one of the foremost visual artists of the "Khartoum School", considered as part of African Modernism and the Hurufiyya art movement, that combined traditional forms of Islamic calligraphy with contemporary artworks. On the occasion of the Tate Modern gallery's first retrospective exhibition of a contemporary artist from Africa in 2013, El-Salahi's work was characterized as "a new Sudanese visual vocabulary, which arose from his own pioneering integration of Islamic, African, Arab and Western artistic traditions."
eL Seed is a French-Tunisian calligraphy artist whose work features in Arabic through graffiti.
Mourad Salem is a Tunisian artist based in Paris, France. His works question historical leaders, often depicting them as immature power-hungry figures. In 2013, Salem's exhibition "Sultans Are No Sultans" debuted at the Nour Festival of Arts from the Middle East and North Africa at the Leighton House Museum in London. Salem is of Turkish origin.
Madiha Umar (1908 – 2005 in Aleppo) was an Iraqi artist who was known for incorporating calligraphy with abstract art. She is generally perceived as the first Arab artist to have done this. Therefore, she is seen as the precursor to the Hurufiyya movement. Also, Umar was the first woman to receive a scholarship from the Iraqi government to study in Europe. Today her grandson Dara Kittani manages her Estate Collection. To see more about Madiha Umar go to her official website www.madihaumar.com
Yazan Halwani is a Lebanese artist and activist from Beirut. Yazan is best known for his public art displays, including graffiti, murals, and sculptures. His murals can be found on buildings across Beirut, and often depict portraits of important Lebanese and Middle Eastern figures.
Calligraffiti is an art form that combines calligraphy, typography, and graffiti. It can be classified as either abstract expressionism or abstract vandalism. It is defined as a visual art that integrates letters into compositions that attempt to communicate a broader message through writing that has been aesthetically altered to move beyond the literal meaning. Simply put, it is the conscious effort of making a word or group of words into a visual composition. As such it is meant to be both an aesthetic experience and provocative art—mixing tradition and precision with modern unbridled self-expression.
The Hurufiyya movement is an aesthetic movement that emerged in the second half of the twentieth century amongst Muslim artists, who used their understanding of traditional Islamic calligraphy within the precepts of modern art. By combining tradition and modernity, these artists worked towards developing a culture specific visual language, which instilled a sense of national identity in their respective nation states, at a time when many of these states where shaking off colonial rule and asserting their independence. They adopted the same name as the Hurufi, an approach of Sufism which emerged in the late 14th–early 15th century. Art historian Sandra Dagher has described Hurufiyya as the most important movement to emerge in Arabic art in the 20th century.
The Institut des cultures arabes et méditerranéennes is an association and Geneva cultural center for the promotion of Arab and Mediterranean cultures in Switzerland.
References
- 1 2 3 Mahdaoui, Molka. "Nja Mahdaoui". Nja Mahdaoui. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
- 1 2 3 4 Spring, Christopher (28 November 2008). Angaza Africa: African Art Now . London: Laurence King. pp. 178–181.
- 1 2 3 Vernoit, S.J. "Mahdaoui, Nja". Grove Art Online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
- 1 2 3 4 5 "Artists Resource". Meem Gallery. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
- 1 2 3 4 Twair, Pat McDonnell (2011). "World-Class Tunisian Artists Exhibited at Ne Sahara Gallery in L.A. Suburb". Washington Report on Middle East Affairs: 38–39.
- ↑ Mavrakis, N., "The Hurufiyah Art Movement in Middle Eastern Art," McGill Journal of Middle Eastern Studies Blog, Online: https://mjmes.wordpress.com/2013/03/08/article-5
- ↑ Richards, Paul. "Africa". Grover Art Online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
- ↑ Geers, Kendell; Ross, Doran H. Ross (Summer 1996). "africa95: Many Stories about the Art of a Continent". African Arts. 29 (3): 6.
- 1 2 Spring, Christopher; Barley, Nigel; Hudson, Julie (Autumn 2001). "The Sainsbury African Galleries at the British Museum". African Arts. 34 (3): 20.
- ↑ "ARTISTES". Institut des cultures arabes et méditerranéennes (ICAM). 14 July 2014. Retrieved 25 January 2020.
