Islamic Art Analysis Essay

The art pieces I choose to analyze are two paired Star Tiles with Vegetal Motifs and Inscriptions. The evolution of the purpose of an artifact reveals the development of complexity within Islamic empires as time progresses. The first Islamic dynasties controlled large unified Islamic states and religious pieces served as the main type of art within their empires. The goal of the gallery layout is to display to an uninformed viewer the evolution of Islamic art over the course of a millennium, and to reveal the four unifying characteristics that emerged, figural representation, geometric patterns, vegetal patterns, and calligraphy (The Met). The first artifacts are the oldest and are only decorated with calligraphy. The pieces eventually progress to geometric and vegetal patterns. The last element to appear is figural representations, because they are the most complicated. The tiles contain three of these main characteristics; calligraphy, vegetal patterns, and geometric patterns.
These ceramic tiles are from the Ilkhanid period and are dated to around the 1260s. In 1258 the Abbasid Caliphate fell to the Mongol hoards from the East and the Ilkhanid dynasty headed by the Mongols began.
A white one-inch boarder inscribed with a Qur’anic verse runs along the edge of the star, while the inside is decorated with white floral designs. The two tiles have different verses along the boarders and different designs in the middle. The use of glazed ceramics for architectural decorations continued into the modern era culminating in the Ottoman and Safavid empires. Both religious and secular buildings were beautifully decorated and tiled. These two star tiles were meant to be part of an interlocking grid pattern, probably the interior of a religious shrine. It is believed that they are from the Imamzada Yahra shrine in