Muqarnas
Muqarnas (
The muqarnas structure originated from the squinch. Its purpose is to create a smooth, decorative zone of transition in an otherwise bare, structural space. This structure gives the ability to distinguish between the main parts of a building and serves as a transition from the walls of a square or rectangular room to a round dome or vault above it.[5][3] From below, these compositions can create an elaborate visual effect based on the interplay of light and shadow across the surfaces sculpted into three-dimensional patterns.[1]
Muqarnas most likely first developed in eleventh-century Iraq, though the earliest preserved examples are also found outside this region.[6][1] As the technique became widespread in the 12th century, regional styles and variations developed across the Islamic world.[1]
Etymology
The etymology of the word muqarnas is somewhat vague.[7] Its earliest use in Arabic dates to the 12th century.[1] It is thought to have originated from the Greek word korōnis, meaning "cornice"[1] or "ornamental molding".[7] There is also speculation of the origin to stem from the Arabic word qarnasi meaning "intricate work".[8] Nişanyan claims that it is related to the Aramaic קרנסא, meaning "hammering".[9]
The Spanish term mocárabe is derived from the Arabic term muqarbaṣ, which was also used to denote muqarnas in the western regions of the Islamic world.
Structure
Muqarnas consists of a series of niche-like elements or cells which are combined in a geometrical framework with a few axes of symmetry.
Muqarnas is typically applied to the undersides of
The form and medium vary depending on the region they are found, as does the size of individual cells.[7] In Syria, Egypt, and Turkey, muqarnas are usually constructed out of stone. In North Africa, they are typically constructed from plaster or wood. In Iran and Iraq, muqarnas are built with bricks which are sometimes covered in plaster or ceramic.[7] Some plaster muqarnas compositions are attached to a hidden supporting framework or upper vault above, either glued or suspended by ropes.[12]
History
Origins
The earliest monuments to make use of this feature date from the 11th century and are found in Iraq, North Africa, Iran, Central Asia, and Upper Egypt.[1] This apparently near-simultaneous appearance in distant regions of the Islamic world has led to different scholarly theories about their origin and diffusion.[1][6] Some early scholars of Islamic art, such as K. A. C. Creswell and Georges Marçais, believed that the evidence points to a simultaneous parallel development in these different regions. Others propose that they originated in one region at least a century earlier and then spread from there.[1]
The earliest evidence of muqarnas-like elements, although only conjectural, comes from fragments of stucco found in
Some scholars have theorized that muqarnas originated in northeastern Iran, based on the evidence from Nishapur and Tim, and that it was further developed in subsequent
In the case of Egypt, the earliest known and securely dated examples of muqarnas are from the
At Qal'at Bani Hammad in central Algeria, a royal city founded in the early 11th century by the Hammadid dynasty, archeologists discovered fragments of plaster which have been identified by some as the earliest appearance of muqarnas in the western Islamic world,[19][20]: 133 but their dating and their identification as true muqarnas have been rejected or disputed by some scholars, including Yasser Tabbaa[6] and Jonathan Bloom.[21]: 93
Later development
By the 12th century muqarnas had spread far and wide and from this point onward it would develop into different styles in different regions.[1] A broad distinction in style and technique is sometimes made between muqarnas in the Maghreb and al-Andalus (the far western regions of the Islamic world) and muqarnas in the rest of the Islamic world.[22]
Syria, Iraq and Iran up to the 13th century
The largest examples of muqarnas domes can be found in Iraq and the
In northern Mesopotamia, muqarnas domes were often made of stucco inside a conical or pyramidal brick roof, as seen in Mausoleum of Imam Awn Al-Din in Mosul (built in 1245, destroyed by ISIL in 2014[24]).[1] A closely related type is also seen in the Shrine of Shaykh 'Abd al-Samad in Natanz, Iran, which is dated to 1307 and demonstrates the sophistication muqarnas had reached in the Ilkhanid period.[1] The oldest examples of entrance portals decorated with muqarnas vaulting in Iran also date to the Ilkhanid period.[1]
Eastern Islamic world after the 14th century
Under the
In Safavid Iran of the 16th to early 18th centuries, muqarnas was no longer used to cover the interiors of religious buildings but was still used to fill the vaults of iwans. Like other surfaces in Safavid architecture, they were typically covered in colourful tilework.[1] In the 18th century, Iranian muqarnas began to be covered with mirror glass mosaics, with one of the earliest examples found at Chehel Sotoun in Isfahan, dating to its restoration in 1706–7. This style was used afterward to decorate the interiors of major Shi'a shrines in Iran and Iraq.[1]
Muqarnas was also a recurring embellishment of vaults and iwans in Mughal architecture in the Indian subcontinent.[27] Experimentation with new styles of vaulting was characteristic of the reign of Jahangir (r. 1605–1627).[28] Muqarnas with small lozenge-shaped cells were combined with a related type of geometrically-patterned (squinch net) vaulting, usually based on a star motif. The latter was probably derived from the influence of Safavid architecture.[28] In Mughal decoration, muqarnas are often covered with arabesque decoration, crafted with molded plaster and fitted to each of the cells.[27]
Mamluk Egypt and Syria
Muqarnas in carved stone was characteristic of Ayyubid and Mamluk architecture from the 13th to early 16th centuries in Egypt and the Levant.[1] The Mamluk sultan Baybars introduced to Egypt the Syrian tradition of entrance portals with a muqarnas hood. These subsequently developed into spectacular designs used in at the entrances of both religious monuments and private palaces,[1] forming some of the most accomplished stone muqarnas designs in the Islamic world.[29][30]: 86 Muqarnas was also frequently used to cover the pendentives inside domed chambers.[30]: 81–83
Muqarnas vaulting in Mamluk portals usually culminated in a scalloped or shell-shaped semi-dome at the top.
Anatolia and the Ottoman Empire
Under the Ottomans, the tradition of Seljuk muqarnas continued into Ottoman architecture, although it diminished in importance during the Classical period in the 16th century, when it was only one element in a wider decorative repertoire.[1] It was mainly used in entrance portals, niches, and column capitals.[3] It eventually faded from use in the 18th century, when European-influenced decoration began to predominate in the Ottoman Baroque period.[1]
Maghreb and al-Andalus
In the western Islamic world, muqarnas decoration was definitively introduced during the reign of the
Further north, in al-Andalus (present-day Spain), the oldest surviving muqarnas fragments were found in a palace built by Muhammad Ibn Mardanish (r. 1147–1172), excavated under the present-day Monastery of Santa Clara in Murcia. The fragments are painted with images of musicians and other figures.[21]: 98–100 It's possible that an even older instance of muqarnas existed in a palace inside the Alcazaba of Almería, dating to the reign of the Taifa ruler al-Mu'tasim (r. 1051–1091). The evidence for its existence comes from a written account by al-Udhri, though the wording may be open to multiple interpretations.[17]
Muqarnas in the Maghreb and al-Andalus evolved a different style and execution from that of muqarnas in the regions to the east.[10][13] In this western region, the technique was also traditionally denoted by the term muqarbaṣ in Arabic and it can also be denoted by the present Spanish term mocárabe.[10][7][11][37] This style of muqarnas reached a new level of standardization and always employed the same repertoire of eight possible shapes, regardless of the complexity of the overall composition.[13] Whereas muqarnas in other regions is typically organized in horizontal layers projecting over each other, those in the west are organized in vertical layers. Wood and stucco were also the preferred mediums of muqarnas construction.[13]
Muqarnas eventually reached its highest level of sophistication in the Alhambra of Granada, built by the Nasrids. The most impressive domes are found in the Palace of the Lions, built in the 14th century.[1] The dome over the chamber known today as the Sala de Dos Hermanas ('Hall of the Two Sisters') is one of the most magnificent muqarnas domes in Islamic art, consisting of at least 5000 cells that unfold from a central summit downward into sixteen miniature domes around the dome's perimeter.[38][39]
Muqarnas was also employed in the constructions sponsored by non-Muslim patrons in the Iberian Peninsula, referred to as Mudéjar art. It continued to be used up to the 17th century in chapels, synagogues, and palaces.[10] The Asunción chapel in the Abbey of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas (near Burgos in northern Spain) features muqarnas and other Islamic-style decoration compatible with Almohad craftsmanship.[10][40]
Outside the Muslim world
Muqarnas was also used by Christian patrons outside the Muslim world, in regions influenced by Islamic art and culture. It is found in some monuments of Arab-Norman architecture in 12th-century Sicily. The most impressive example is in the Cappella Palatina (c. 1140) in Palermo, which has a central nave covered by the largest rectangular muqarnas vault in the world, made of painted wood.[21]: 102–104
Muqarnas is also featured in the Byzantine-built Church of Hagia Sophia in Trabzon (Trebizond), completed in the 13th century.[44] Antony Eastmond, in analyzing this detail of the church and comparing it with other non-Muslim monuments of the period (including Armenian constructions), suggests that muqarnas could have been adopted into a wider repertoire of architectural motifs and ideas that was shared across Anatolia and the surrounding region at this time.[44]
Symbolism
As with the origins of the muqarnas form, there are multiple theories about its possible symbolic meaning or function.[3] Oleg Grabar, in his work on the Alhambra in Granada, suggested that the large muqarnas domes in the Palace of the Lions were representations of the rotating heavens.[45][6]
Yasser Tabbaa has argued that the muqarnas dome was originally intended as an architectural representation of the atomist and occasionalist view of the universe endorsed by Muslim philosophers, particularly the version formulated by al-Baqillani (d. 1013) and endorsed by the Abbasid caliph al-Qadir (r. 991–1031), roughly around the time that muqarnas began to appear.[6] By subdividing the continuous surface of a dome into a large number of small units organized in a complex pattern, while also de-emphasizing the former squinches and making the dome appear unsupported, architects were representing a universe divided into atoms and held together by God.[6] Tabbaa goes on to suggest that the symbolism of the muqarnas dome as a representation of the rotating dome of heaven, proposed by Grabar, could have been a secondary interpretation that developed in subsequent centuries.[6]
The muqarnas domes were often constructed above portals of entry for the purpose of establishing a threshold between two worlds. The celestial connotation of the muqarnas structure represents a passage from "the functions of living, or of awaiting eternal life that is expressed by geometric forms."[46]
Gallery
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Exterior of the Bimaristan of Nur al-Din in Damascus (1154), with a muqarnas hood over the entrance and a muqarnas dome (partly visible) behind it
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Muqarnas corbelling around the balcony of the Qutb Minar (1199–1220) in Delhi, India
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Entrance portal of the Alaeddin Mosque in Niğde (1223)
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Muqarnas vault with centralGeghard Monastery in Armenia (13th century, before 1225)[42]
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The tiled muqarnas mihrab of the Eşrefoğlu Mosque in Beyşehir (1297)
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Vault carved with muqarnas in Aleppo, Syria, showing method of suspension for pendant points
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A flat muqarnas vault in the portal of the Madrasa as-Sallamiya in Jerusalem (1338), Mamluk period
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Muqarnas, single cell. Earthenware with molded decoration under opaque turquoise glaze, Timurid art, 1st half of the 15th century. From the Shah-i-Zinda in Samarkand.
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Medieval architect's plan of two muqarnas vaults, from the Topkapı Scroll
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Detail, calotte filled with colored muqarnas. Niche from a Samaritan's house in Damascus, Syria. 15th-16th century CE. Islamic Art Museum (Museum für Islamische Kunst), Berlin
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Muqarnas capital inside the courtyard of the Bayezid II Mosque in Istanbul (1500–1505), Ottoman period
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Stone-carved muqarnas in the entrance portal of theKhanqah of Sultan al-Ghuriin Cairo (circa 1505), late Mamluk period
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Muqarnas cornice inside the Sheesh Mahal (Hall of Mirrors) in the Amber Fort in Amer (17th century)
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Wooden muqarnas vault in the Kasbah Palace, Tangier, Morocco
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Muqarnas vaults over theKashan Bazaar, Iran
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Upward- and downward-facing muqarnas on the minaret of the Hatem Mosque in Alexandria
See also
Part of a series on |
Arabic culture |
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- Architecture of Iran – Architecture associated with Iran
- Islamic geometric patterns – Geometric pattern characteristic of Muslim art
- Mathematics and art – Relationship between mathematics and art
- Symbolism of domes
References
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- ^ "Mukarnas".
- ^ ISBN 978-90-04-09419-2.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-89236-335-3.
In the Muslim west, the term muqarbas was also used to describe muqarnas formations.
- ^ ISBN 978-90-04-09419-2.
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- ^ S2CID 143453931.
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- ^ Golvin, Lucien (1957). "Notes sur quelques fragments de platre trouvés récemment à la Qal'a des Beni-Hammâd". Mélanges d'Histoire et d'archéologie de l'occident musulman II, Hommage a Georges Marçais. Algiers: Imprimerie Officielle du Gouvernement Général de l'Algérie. pp. 75–94.
- ISBN 9780190624552.
- ^ ISBN 9780300218701.
- ^
See distinction made in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition:
- Fernandez-Puertas, Antonio (1993). "Muḳarbaṣ". In ISBN 978-90-04-09419-2.
- Behrens-Abouseif, Doris (1993). "Muḳarnaṣ". In ISBN 978-90-04-09419-2.
- Fernandez-Puertas, Antonio (1993). "Muḳarbaṣ". In
- ISBN 9781119068662.
- ^ "Shrine of al-Imam Awn al-Din". Remembering Mosul. Retrieved 2023-04-15.
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- ISBN 978-0-486-16873-9.
- ISBN 978-3-8470-1103-3.
- ISBN 978-3-89971-915-4.
- ^ ISBN 9780748646821.
- .
- ISBN 978-84-95856-30-2.
Muqarna: [...] in al-Andalus they are known as muqarbas (in Spanish mocárabes), but in the Islamic east, from whence they originate, they are called muqarnas.
- ISBN 9780674063600.
- ISBN 9788492441129.
- ISBN 3822896322.
- ISBN 978-0-19-026901-2.
- ^ JSTOR 1523305.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4744-1130-1.
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External links
- Images of exterior and interior of Imam Dur Shrine in Iraq, prior to its 2014 destruction
- polygonal computer models
- Slideshow on muqarnas geometry, with traditional and computer-assisted new designs.