Arts of Allusion
Object, Ornament, and Architecture in Medieval Islam
Margaret S. Graves
Reviews and Awards
Winner of the Medieval Academy of America 2021 Karen Gould Prize in Art History
Winner of the International Center of Medieval Art Annual Book Prize
"Margaret Graves's Arts of Allusion offers a groundbreaking conceptualization of medieval Islamic portable objects, arguing for their rightful place within the broader intellectual history of the medieval Islamic world.... Arts of Allusion is a book that should be required reading not only for scholars of Islamic art but for medievalists more broadly, scholars of material culture, and medieval intellectual history." -- Jennifer Pruitt, Speculum
"This well-written and beautifully illustrated book presents a number of interesting and innovative ways of looking at medieval objects produced across the Islamic world... this is a ground-breaking book that will be of great interest to a wide range of art historians..." -- Richard Piran McClary, Association for Art History
"Graves's methodology, careful research, and frameworks for analysis of nonmimetic art make for an innovative book that will be an important point of reference for historians of Islamic art and architecture, as well as scholars engaged in the study of objects. Her work has broad implications for the way we understand the links among objects and architecture, and also the place of the object in the discipline." -- Heather Badamo, CAA.Reviews
"This volume will be important for future scholarship." -- L. Nees, CHOICE
"Arts of Allusion can be wholeheartedly recommended for its contribution to the study of Islamic visual culture. Graves offers much more than an iconographic or typological examination of ornament; through her integrated analysis of objects and primary written sources she provides new insights into the cultural and intellectual frameworks informing the perceptions of the makers and consumers of medieval Islamic art." -- Marcus Milwright, Journal of Islamic Studies
"Exploring analogies between portable objects and monumental architecture, this innovative and beautifully-written book offers new perspectives on ornament, poetics, and visual perception in the medieval Islamic world. It combines formal analysis with the study of primary sources to argue convincingly for the need to acknowledge intersections between artisanal activity and contemporary intellectual currents as intrinsic to the making of Islamic art." -- Finbarr Barry Flood, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of the Humanities and Director of Silsila: Center for Material Histories, New York University
"This is a groundbreaking study on the reciprocities between the plastic arts and monumental architecture of the medieval Middle East. Margaret Graves is to be congratulated for having revealed the multiple and variable meanings of the allusive relationships between objects and buildings in the Islamic world. By showing how philosophy, theology, science and literature were integrated into the design, production, and perception of the artworks presented, she offers an important contribution to Islamic intellectual, social, and art history." -- Gerhard Jaritz, Professor of Medieval Studies, Central European University
"At last, the book that this subject most needs: an intelligent and learned study which takes our understanding of the Islamic art object far beyond the usual simplistic 'symbolic interpretation' of their ornament. To truly experience mediaeval objects we have to engage with all the physical and intellectual processes of making: not just what they 'look like', but how they engage with all the senses, and how it is above all in reference to architecture, to literature and to philosophy that their power and meaning are to be found." -- Oliver Watson, I.M. Pei Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture, Oxford University
