The most outstanding feature of the Islamic worldview is embodied in the proclamation: "La ilaha illa Allah" which means, “There is no god but Allah.”
It is rooted in the monotheistic principle of tawhid, which it proclaims.
Principles
Islamic art principles:
Tawhid
Follow/Obey
Beautiful Places
Permission
Tawhid
Derived from the word for “one,” “unique,” or “peerless” (wahid).
It is a concept implying oneness and utter transcendence of God.
Tawhid precludes any confusion or absorption of the divine in the non-divine.
Tawhid is a loaded concept that implies:
A definition of the Muslim’s view of God.
A definition of his view of this world.
A definition of his role in life as an individual and a member of society.
Opinion - Ibnu Khaldun
Ibnu Khaldun said art is something truthful, beautiful, and honest.
Ibnu Khaldun: Truthful, Beautiful, Honest
Truthful:
Art needs to follow rules from Allah.
Islamic art gives more intention to aqidah, syarak and attitude.
Calligraphy is an example to show truthfulness to Allah.
Beautiful:
Islam encourages the creation of beautiful artwork.
Honest:
Artwork in Islamic art needs to have honesty, loyalty, and a good attitude.
Example: Calligraphy pattern inside a mosque.
The View of Nature in Islam
In Islam, nature is creation and gift.
Creation: It is teleological, perfect, and orderly.
Gift: It is innocent good placed at the disposal of man.
Its purpose is to enable man to do good and achieve felicity.
This treble judgment of orderliness, purposiveness, and goodness characterizes and sums up the Islamic view of nature.
What Islam Rejects
Islam rejects:
The representation of the Divine with figures from nature.
The creation of any form of religious image
The beautiful and the significant in art is not in the aesthetic portrayal of humanity or human attributes, or of the truths of nature.
Aesthetic Goals
Instead, this transcendence-obsessed culture sought, through the creation of the beautiful, to stimulate in the viewer:
An intuition of
An insight into
The nature of Allah SWT and of man’s relation to Him.
Islamic Aesthetics
The Islamic message of tawhid permeated both the content and the form of Islamic art.
Content of Islamic Art
It can be demonstrated that Islamic art is primarily abstract art.
Since Allah (SWT) is completely other-than the natural world, no creature from nature could stand as a symbol for Him.
In Islam, an artwork or image of GOD cannot be defined in human figure either naked man or woman.
Islamic art can be divided into truthful, beautiful, and honest which consist of aesthetic, ethic, and logical elements.
Aesthetic: Beautiful arrangement to attract audience.
Ethic: Islamic art follows the rules in Islamic belief.
Logical: Based on truthfulness.
Focus of the Artist
The artist concentrates on:
Geometric and other abstract designs.
Elaborate calligraphy.
Heavily stylized and denaturalized figures from the plant world.
Animal forms became fantastic creatures divorced from nature.
Beauty in Islamic Art
Beauty for a Muslim artist is not the idealization of nature.
Beauty is consisted in a portrayal which expressed something other than nature, something meant to generate an intuition of the real essence of the Transcendent.
Levels of Content in Islamic Art
There are two levels of content in Islamic art:
Content with a small “c”: Involves the obvious, surface “content.”
Content with a capital “C”: Through its representation of the ostensible motifs, figures, characters, or events, seeks to reveal a deeper message or “Content.”
Form of Islamic Art
The Islamic view of God and reality has influenced the artists choice as well as the organization of those non-natural or denaturalized motifs.
Two formal characteristics of Islamic artistic creations reveal their conformance with the Islamic message:
Non-Developmental Nature
Example of a non-developmental form in Islamic painting: has no one focal point to which all minor elements of the picture point and subordinate themselves.
Conjunct and Disjunction Arabesque Structure
The definition of arabesque is primarily a matter of the structure of art.
Arabesque can be separated into two types: the conjunct (muttasil from wasala, “to connect”) and the munfasil (from fasala, “to divide in sections”).
A conjunct arabesque resembles a continuum.
A disjunct or munfasil arabesque comprises a combination of motifs in such a manner as to present a series of self-contained units, each complete in itself.
Each component is also loosely interwoven with those other units around it in such a way as to produce a larger pattern of which a small unit is but a single pattern.
Art as Knowledge
“…art also becomes an essential means for gaining knowledge, and, in its fuller development, for attaining the final awareness. Knowledge and beauty become one, single experience.”
Art and Contemplation
“Art and contemplation: the object of art is beauty of form, whereas the object of contemplation is beauty beyond form, which unfolds the formal order qualitatively whilst infinitely surpassing it.”
Beauty as an Aspect of Reality
“To extent that art is akin to contemplation it is knowledge, since Beauty is an aspect of Reality in the absolute meaning of the world. Nor is it the least of its aspects, for it reveals the unity and infinity that are immanent in things.”
Tawhid Discussion
Discussion: Based on the image given - discussion about tawhid in Malay Traditional Art. 12/09/2009