Oleg Grabar (1929–2011) was a professor in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and was for many years the Aga Khan Professor of Islamic Art at Harvard University. His many books include The Alhambra, The Formation of Islamic Art, and The Great Mosque of Isfahan.
"It is impossible to approach this profoundly stimulating book by
Oleg Grabar without reflecting on the strange twists of fate that
the discourse of ornament has undergone in the last two centuries.
. . . Oleg Grabar takes up anew the challenge of using ornament to
broach artistic questions."---Margaret Olin, Art Bulletin
"This is writing that not only rewards but requires rereading. . .
. If The Formation of Islamic Art was the most provocative and
generously conceived book on its subject in the '70s, The Mediation
of Ornament, with its expanded frame of reference and sense of
personal urgency, may well assume that status for the
'90s."---Holland Cotter, Art in America
"In a real sense the book is a mediation, the Platonic daemon,
between ornament and the reader. . . . When language has to be
invented or defined to fulfill a specific need, as here, it is a
sign that new concepts are being proposed by the author."---Sylvia
Auld, Art History
"With perhaps Socratic irony, Grabar maneuvers between ideology and
mere decoration by divining in ornament a mediating function in a
world troubled by doubt. Grabar believes that ornament constitutes
a ‘discourse on love.’ His book, written with a kindly wit, and a
keen intelligence, is beautifully illustrated, and itself
illustrates the role of ornament in the world."
*Bostonia*
"Grabar seeks to understand the transmission of meaning from visual
form to interpretation: what is it that mediates between the
physical object and a viewer's understanding? He postulates that in
Islamic art it is writing, geometry and (images of) architecture
and nature, which together constitute ornament. . . . An honest
statement of one scholar's personal intellectual journey."
*Mesa Bulletin*
"An admirable treatise . . . it offers its readers an exemplary
interplay of art history and aesthetics. One receives a beautifully
illustrated introduction to Islamic art, and each work earns its
presence by serving to bring a theoretical issue to life. This is
cross-fertilization at its very best."
*Journal of Aesthetics and Art*
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