پژوهشنامه فرهنگستان هنر
پیاپی 9 (تابستان 1387)

The theory of the structure of horizon, which has been proposed and practiced by Michel Collot, the contemporary thorniest and poet, has been applied to the artistic and literary works. This theory and critical approach is largely indebted to the phenomenological and thematic theories ( and especially to Jean Pierre Richard’s works); it is, in fact, a sequence to those approaches. In the recent decades, the theory of the structure of horizon has found high popularity amongst researchers and scholars, especially in France. Since this approach has remained unknown to the reading public and the elite of this country, this article, along with a brief introduction, attempts to apply this approach to the paintings by two German romantic painters, Carl Gustave Carus and Casper David Friedrich.

Re-reading (reading what is unwritten between the lines) of Titus Burckhardt’s fascinating work on the Islamic Far West entitled Fez, City of Islam (originally published in Germen under the title of Fes, Stadt des Islam), provides us with the author’s symbolic vision-in-depth of the visionary geography of the ‘Far West’, al-Maghrib al-‘aqsā in Arabic, which means the ‘land of the setting sun’. The encounter of ‘time’ and ‘eternity’, or in other words, the assimilation of the nunc fluens (lit. ‘moving present’, the terrestrial instant) into the nunc stans (‘abiding present’) during the luminous threshold of the sundown, is the macrocosmic equivalent of microcosmic event of ‘spiritual death’, the semi-abiding ‘moment’ when the soul of the aspirant reaches its full ontological weight at the threshold of the ‘void’ of the ‘narrow gate’; this ‘concept’ is one of the major attitudes of the Far-Western (Maghribi) Sufi doctrines. This also provides us with understanding of the author’s attitude towards the ‘visionary geography’ of the ‘Far West’, as a ‘boundary region’, where the juxtapositions of dual extremes like ‘sedentarism’ and ‘nomadism’, offer the possibility of sudden unveilings of the mysteries, hidden in the world-beyond.

Traditionalist generally classify art into three groups of religious, traditional, and holy. The first two are regarded as spiritual arts, but the third one is called holy which is higher in hierarchy. To the traditionalists, there is a distinct borderline between these arts. Holy art has a direct influence upon religious and traditional art. It has its own language and its message is universal. The holy art’s message is the same in all religions, but it is manifested differently in each one. In Christianity, for instance, this message is pictured in the art of Christ’s Portrayal, in Islamic art it is pictured in the art of reciting Koran, calligraphy, the holy architecture, and in some of the literary and mystic works. The holy art’s specialty lies in its heavenly beauty, but the beauty itself is not the target. On the contrary, this beauty is a reflection of the God’s infinite beauty. This beauty holds its mirror to the spiritual and inner world. Thus the artist who creates such art is a special person and also the audience of such art are special people as well. Regarding what was said, this article studies the characteristics of traditional art and also the higher art which is the holy art. In this frame, while analyzing the characteristics of such arts, the article will also study the ideas and theories of some remarkable figures of traditional school in west including A.K. Coomaraswamy, Rene Guenon, Frithjof Schuon, Martin Lings, and Seyyed Hossein Nasr.

From Ananda K. Coomaraswamy’s point of view, things are equal in the terms of beauty. Therefore, there is no difference between a cathedral and a warehouse, or between a rose and a smelly lettuce. We can not claim than which one is better. Because each is beautiful in its own way, no matter what it is, and thus there is no priority for one over another. This idea is applicable to both nature and art, and one can not talk about “the ugly” or “ the less beautiful” or even imagine a range for beauty. This article studies this theory of beauty.

In this article,I will give an overview of A.K. Coomaraswamy’s approach to the interpretation of symbols in traditional art. Developing my discussion around a close reading of his essay “The Interpretation of Symbols” whilst also drawing on his other essays on traditional art, I will attempt to answer three questions: What is Coomaraswamy’s understanding of the role of symbols in traditional art? How does he articulate this understanding? And, how does he approach traditional symbolism compare with other traditionalists’ methods such as those of Rene Guenon and Martin Lings? Based on these questions and after discussing the differentiating aspects of outward and inward features of traditional art, I will differentiate between artistic forms and permanent archetypes, and will study the relations between symbolism in art and symbolism in Revelation and nature.

Perennialist school does not originate from modernism and nor from post-modernism. Although perennialist school is reviewed in the contemporary era, it transcends time and space. The modern world always has egoistically considered itself the standpoint for everything. Hence, and because of a lack of proper epistemological view, it calls the transcendental and the divine nature of perennialist school a false claim. Even if the modern world pays a little attention to this school, it is done based on modern measurements and criteria. The modern world identifies Perennialist school as an ideological philosophy with unscientific, paradoxical, and complicated study subjects. While modernity regards timing as its own essence, tradition stays unchanged through its own time-surpassing divine nature. Along with exemplifying some Perennialist Criticism of contemporary art, this article attempts to clarify the basis of this school.

Since traditional thinkers and researchers refer repeatedly to the dialectical and mystic texts of Islamic civilization, their ideas are mostly hermeneutic and also too personal. These thinkers claim that the mysteries and codes hidden in the Islamic art, paintings, and drawings are interpretable only by the sources which are inherently related to the mysteries. This approach, which has by far had its own conclusions and findings, has been studied and criticized by some critics including Najib Oghloo, a Harvard University professor. She believes that the traditionalist thinkers’ ideas do not match the scientific methods and the historical events, and thus are unreliable. This article, while referring to some traditionalist thinkers’ ideas and their critics’ claims, studies and analyses these critics ideas.