Main iwan vault, Mir-i Arab Madrasah,
17th century. Bukhara, Uzbekistan.

 

 

The art of decoration

 

The Arab-Ata Mausoleum at Tim (Uzbekistan), dated 977, is the first type of funerary monument with portal and cupola. Its façade is emphasied by a monumental portal topped by a gracious blind arch. The principal ornamentation – brick masonry or sculpted stucco – is concentrated on the portal. Geometrical ornaments (ghirikh) begin to appear as well as the first epigraphic decorations, like the one on the façade. Central Asian people are particularly fond of ornaments. Geometrical and vegetal designs, abstract or epigraphic, cover practically everything – from the portals of the palaces to snuff-boxes. During the 10th through the 12th centuries, geometrical ornaments acquired a theoretical foundation, due to an astonishing impetus given in the East by mathematics and particularly by applied geometry.

 

From the time Central Asia was drawn into the Muslim orbit, epigraphic ornament acquired an entirely new character. The inscriptions in Arabic – of religious moral inspiration – had a definite goal. Their aesthetic effect contributed to the expansion of the Islamic dogma. But in many cases (as in the Arab-Ata Mausoleum), these inscriptions also contain historical information (dates, names, sometimes the names of the builders). The calligraphers must have written the texts with great exactitude and care for the beauty of the Arabic writing, proportions, harmony, and rhythm. During the 10th century the architectural decoration adopted a severe style, with Kufic lettering, and during the 11th and 12th centuries a more pleasant and complex lettering began to appear as well as other calligraphy with more fluid lines, the naskhi.