Bringing attention to the body in an emerging Arab art world
Most conversations about the history of nude art may gloss over the Middle East, even though such works existed in the region hundreds of years ago. Graves points to three locations from the eighth century.
One of them, Quseir Amra, a palace in modern-day Jordan, is decorated with frescoes depicting various figures, including naked women. Until the site was rediscovered in the 19th century, Graves said, the story of art in the early Islamic world “was based on the idea that there were no depictions of people, and certainly no nudity.”
Graves also quoted sculptures by partially naked women found in Khirbat al-Mafjar and Qasr al-Mshatta, two other palaces in the region. a drawing of a partially nude courtesan, reportedly found in present-day Cairo, probably dates from the 10th to 12th centuries. After that period, it was only with the spread of other widely known nude artworks that appeared in the Middle East erotic manuscripts in the Ottoman Empire, Graves said.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as the Ottoman Empire declined and European rule slowly made its way into the Middle East, many Arab countries underwent a cultural renaissance, or the Nahda, Eltantawi said. The “flowering of nudes,” evident in the Wallach exhibition, she added, was a product of that moment of curiosity and openness.
Around the same time, Muhammad Abduh, an Islamic reformer and then Grand Mufti of Egypt, traveled to Europe and wrote of his amazement at its museums and scientific institutions. He then issued a religious edict, or fatwa, that allowed the making of statues and depictions of living beings for scientific and educational purposes, as long as it did not lead to idolatry.
“This is the most crucial moment in the history of Arab art,” said Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, the founder of Arab art. Barjeel Art Foundation, which provided support and works for the Wallach exhibition. Although Abduh did not mention nudes, many artists saw his edict as a green light to paint bodies, Eltantawi said.