TABLE OF CONTENTS » Overview Handout A: Artistic Exchange Between Europe and the Islamic World Handout B: Map Activities Handout C: Art Questions

By Susan L. Douglass  - May, 2005

Overview

This lesson is designed to increase comprehension and appreciation of the National Gallery of Art brochure Artistic Exchange: Europe and the Islamic World, and the accompanying informational labels on featured works in the National Gallery of Art's permanent collection. Reading comprehension activities help students understand the background essay about the context of cultural exchange between Europeans and others in the eastern hemisphere during the century before 1500. Through picture study, students learn to identify the evidence of these exchanges in the art objects and correlate them to the larger context of interaction among cultures over a long and formative period of world history.

Objectives

The student will:

• Explain how influences from Islamic arts entered parts of Europe during the medieval and Renaissance periods and beyond.
• Describe several types of interactions between Europeans and Muslims that resulted in artistic and technological exchanges.
• Locate cities where artistic, technological and commercial exchanges between Muslims and Europeans took place between the 12th and 16th centuries.
• Identify examples of specific influences on European artists by the productions of Muslim artists, and identify corresponding genres of Muslim art that provided the source of influence in each example

Materials Needed

The brochure from the National Gallery of Art exhibit, "Artistic Exchange: Europe and the Islamic World." This document may be downloaded from CIE here.

Optional: searches of NGA permanent collection by titles in brochure-collection entry page online at http://www.nga.gov/collection/index.shtm.

Optional: use Rosamond E. Mack, Bazaar to Piazza: Islamic Trade and Italian Art, 1300-1600 (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2002).

Procedure:

1. Have students look at the cover of the brochure and try to determine what the painting might be about, what time and place might be the origin of the figures, costumes and props (dish and cup). Responses will be vague, as the content is very mixed, but it will get students thinking about the topic at hand. As a preview, ask where in the world the large bowl might have originated.
2. Assign the introductory essay and comprehension questions on Handout A. Assign the map activities on Handout B. [See Answer Key at the end of this lesson plan].
3. Have the students locate online images of the specific artworks featured in the brochure, using the titles and artists' names. Working in groups of two, students will read the captions showing Islamic influences in these works of art, and identify the evidence found in the paintings. Each group of students will be the class experts on the work, and will present it to the group, answering the questions and writing their findings in the spaces on Handout C.

Extension: For advanced students or classes, assign chapters from Bazaar to Piazza to allow students to research various types of influence and the artistic productions that provided the source of these influences in ceramics, textiles, carpets, design and metalwork.

Assessment: Show slides or other reproduced images and ask students to identify and describe examples of artistic exchanges, either orally or in written form, describing both the work in which the influence appears, and the sources in Muslim artistic productions.

Answer Key:

Note: This answer key refers to the questions on Handout A.

1. There are 21 works from the NGA collection in the West Building, which are marked with special turquoise-bordered labels.
2. It describes the medieval period and the European Renaissance, from about 800 CE to the early 1600s
3. Forms of European/Muslim contact included diplomatic gifts, military expeditions including the Crusades, pilgrimages to the Holy Land, trade and travel.
4. Luxury goods included marvelous objects, silks, inlaid metalwork, painted glassware, and ceramics.
5. Warfare sometimes increased contacts by bringing Europeans in touch with other lands and ways of life, and sometimes disrupted contacts, but the net effect was steady diplomatic and commercial relations over the whole period.
6. The art objects demonstrate an attitude of admiration, and show that a high value in prestige and display of wealth was attached to these objects, and they demonstrate the desire to emulate their styles and designs, or to appropriate them for the Europeans' own uses.
7. Foreign travel (and increasing colonial occupation) aided the development of collections of Islamic art objects. Wealthy donors gave the objects to museums for public display.

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