This book explores the great diversity and range of Islamic culture through one of the finest collections in the world. Published to coincide with the historic reopening of the galleries of the Metropolitan Museum's Islamic Art Department, it presents nearly three hundred masterworks created in the rich tradition of the Islamic faith and culture. The Metropolitan's renowned holdings range chronologically from the origins of Islam in the 7th century through the 19th century, and geographically from as far west as Spain to as far east as Southeast Asia.

An in-depth and comprehensive study of art from the Islamic world based on the preeminent collection in the Metropolitan Museum

Each reproduction is accompanied by a text that includes pertinent information about the work.

Artists have long been stimulated and motivated by the work of those who came before them—sometimes, centuries before them. Interviews with 120 international contemporary artists discussing works from The Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection that spark their imagination shed new light on art-making, museums, and the creative process. Images of works from The Met collection appear alongside images of the contemporary artists' work, allowing readers to discover a rich web of visual connections that spans cultures and millennia.

This monumental new book is the first to celebrate the greatest and most iconic paintings from the encyclopedic collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, one of the largest, most important, and most beloved museums in the world. This impressive volume's broad sweep of material, all from a single museum, makes it at once a universal history of painting and the ideal introduction to the iconic masterworks of this world-renowned institution. More than 1,000 lavish color illustrations and details of 500 masterpiece paintings, created over 5,000 years in cultures across the globe, are presented chronologically from the dawn of civilization to the present. These works represent a grand tour of painting from ancient Egypt and classical antiquity and prized Byzantine and medieval altarpieces, to paintings from Asia, India, Africa and the Americas, and and the greatest European and North American masters. The Metropolitan Museum of Art includes and introduction and illuminating texts about each artwork written specially for this volume by Kathryn Calley Galitz, whose experience as both curator and educator at the Met makes her uniquely qualified. European and American artists include Duccio, El Greco, Raphael, Titian, Botticelli, Bronzino, Caravaggio, Turner, Velázquez, Goya, Rubens, Rembrandt, Brueghel, Vermeer, David, Renior, Monet, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne, Degas, Sargent, Homer, Matisse, Picasso, Pollock, Jasper Johns, and Warhol. The artworks are arranged in rough chronological order, without regard to geography or culture, offering a visual timeline of the history of painting, from the earliest examples on pottery jars made over five thousand years ago to canvases on which the paint has barely dried. Freed from the constraints imposed by the physical layout of the Museum, the paintings resonate anew; and this chronological framework reveals unexpected visual affinities among the works. For those wishing to experience the unparalleled breadth and depth of the Met's collection, or study masterpieces of painting from throughout history, this important volume is sure to become a classic cherished by art lovers around the world.

"The evolution of book art and painting in the Islamic world is the product of diverse regions and periods. Islamic art flourished in the great cities and centers of learning of the ottoman Turks, the Iranian Qajars, and the later Indian Mughals, spreading across a region that extended from the Atlantic Ocean to China. In this volume, Greg Grabar, a world-renowned specialist on Islamic Art, introduces a wide range of illuminated manuscripts from the 8th to the 17th century, placing them in their temporal and spatial context as well as identifying the main centers of artistic creation. Illuminated manuscripts of the Koran, epic poetry, and scientific works are accompanied by a text explaining the subject, describing it particular visual features, and highlighting its artistic qualities. The working methods of the artists and calligraphers are reconstructed. [...] In the book's final section the author turns towards the key moments in history, society, faith, devotion, and other aspects of the Islamic world which are represented in the images." -- Book jacket.

The engaging and accessible volume offers invaluable insights and novel perspectives on what is perhaps the most iconic of all Islamic art forms: the handwoven carpet. With a history stretching back to the fourteenth century and a geographic reach spanning Europe to Eurasia, Mongolia to the Middle East, Islamic carpets boast a degree of innovation and technical skill to rival the world's most exalted works of art. Beauty and brilliance emerge in equal measure from carpets of all forms be they colossal silk rugs exchanged as gifts by sultans and kings or small and sturdy textiles woven for use in nomadic encampments. Some sixty superlatives examples from the Metropolitan Museum's collection—from Persia, India, Turkey, North Africa, and across the Islamic world—are presented here in lavish detail, with concise and approachable texts that position each work in historical and cultural context. Beginning with a discussion of materials and techniques, How to Read Islamic Carpets offers a comprehensive introduction to this captivating art form, and reveals the lasting influence of carpet-weaving traditions in lands far beyond the Islamic world.