The Visual Language of Islamic Art

About this event

Islamic art encompasses a variety of artistic traditions that have flourished across a vast geographic region from southern Spain and North Africa to the islands of Southeast Asia. While different cities and regions developed their own distinct styles, they also share aesthetic characteristics that constitute a recognizable visual language. In an introduction to the traditional arts of the Islamic world, museum consultant Sabiha Al Khemir provides an overview of Islamic art across a range of media, with particular attention to calligraphy, painting, ceramics, metalwork, and textiles. The program is illustrated with examples of works of Islamic art from public and private collections around the world. Her survey explores the visual language of Islamic art and its artistic principles within the contexts in which it was produced. It connects the various aspects that are present throughout different media and highlights their cultural significance. She draws an arc across form, time, and place as she examines the unifying visual language of traditional Islamic art through examples spanning the 9th to the 19th century. Al Khemir was the founding director of the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar and has curated several large-scale exhibitions of Islamic art in Europe and the United States. She has consulted for the Metropolitan Museum of Art and taught Islamic art courses at the British Museum. General Information View Common FAQs and Policies about our Online Programs on Zoom .