by Jon Lackman | 5 November 2008 | Architecture, Theory
In caa.reviews, Oleg Grabar considers “the unease most of us feel about traditional categories like Islamic and medieval, which are still the categories in which the field of art history is divided. We can probably agree that national labels are inadequate or misleading when dealing with the past, even though they are essential in identifying “national” museums or in fostering pride and knowledge of one’s heritage. These are all matters that need discussion, preferably not an acrimonious one.”
These meditations arise in Grabar’s review of History and Ideology: Architectural Heritage of the “Lands of Rum,” edited by Sibel Bozdoğan and Gülru Necipoğlu:
This is a remarkable volume and of considerable significance to art historians and university administrators … that may well require all historians of art to redefine the traditional time-and-space dimensions of the ways of knowledge in the field and, by extension, the structure of departments … it presents its traditional scholarly pursuits within a different framework from the usual one of an “Islamic” architecture. It argues that the adjective “Islamic” is not appropriate for the arts and cultures of many different places and times, and that it was imposed, or at least propelled, by the “bad” Orientalism, the one that implied Western domination and that must be differentiated from the “good” Orientalism based on a careful knowledge of languages and of history. This volume also rejects as inappropriate to the past the nation-centered identifications and labels that have become so important in the contemporary world, most particularly in Turkey and Iran. It proposes to identify a region—Anatolia and the Balkans—that cannot be identified in national or religious terms, at least not until the early twentieth century, and to argue that this region has its own conception of architecture, at times its own forms, but mostly a way with forms that distinguishes it from surrounding areas and from the broad culture with which it is usually put … An educational program is implicit in the arguments of this volume, a program that will take time to set up and energy to continue. Education and research are activities for which art historians are, or should be, prepared. The more difficult issue is an administrative one. Is there much point in continuing this debate unless one knows that the leadership of universities, museums, and schools of art and architecture understand the nature of the problems and their importance at a time of academic globalization?
