RECENT TAASA ACTIVITIES – TAASA Review March 2021

TAASA NSW 9 November 2020 Islamic Art: Beyond Perception and Perspective Zoom lecture In this talk, Professor Samer Akkach explored the reasons why traditional Islamic paintings differ so much in their spatial composition from art and architecture in Europe since the Renaissance.

While the use of perspective and visual realism became the accepted norm in Europe, pre-modern Islamic paintings continued to present a flattened perspective which did not strive for naturalism and offered multiple, multilevel perspectives rather than one authoritative point of view. Samer argued that, rather than due to cultural differences (different ways of perceiving) or cultural incapacity (impeding the development of perspective techniques), it is deliberate cultural preference that informs the spatial composition of premodern Islamic painting. Islamic sources indicate that the realistic depiction of the natural world was not highly regarded, but rather seen as merely a literal depiction of reality restricted to the senses.

Of higher value was a visual depiction based on an understanding reached through the mind, the imagination and reflection...