What art was for

This lesson asks you to analyse the function and social impact of different kinds of art works in past and present societies. The museum offers three cases from Islamic history where writing served a purpose, in sacred texts, on coins and on city walls; present-day cases come from your class. ¹

For each record, name the people who would have seen the work and the places where they met it. Say what the maker or patron wanted them to do or feel, and mark what is only your guess.

Sort the three cases by function: sacred, official, commemorative or another. Then ask which of those jobs a work of art still does today.

Read the gates of Cairo as one scholar does. Bernard O'Kane lists the inscriptions of the gates Bab al-Futuh, Bab al-Nasr and Bab al-Tawfiq among the works of Badr al-Jamali ^{2 3 4 5}. He notes that on these gates Badr's titles take up much more space than those of the caliph al-Mustansir, "a nod to the real holder of power" ⁵. He adds that the fourth line at Bab al-Nasr is carved on the voussoirs of the relieving arch and is longer than the three lines above, evidence of a hasty afterthought ⁵.

The word "propaganda" sounds like praise sent down from a ruler. The Doha booklet's definition is wider: its propaganda coins could be put into circulation officially by the sultan or ruler for an occasion, or unofficially by the elite or the public, secretly or openly, according to their political stance toward the state ⁶. Their form was not fixed, and they could carry a text, an image, a mark or a symbol expressing a favourable or hostile idea ⁶.

The gates are read through one chapter, by one author. The observations are of carved stone: how much space a title takes, which line sits on which stones, and how long it is. The conclusions, "a nod to the real holder of power" and "a hasty afterthought", are O'Kane's readings of those observations ⁵. The record does not say who ordered the extra line or whether Badr al-Jamali asked for his titles to be large, so those questions stay open.

Badr's titles fill more of the gate than the caliph's. Defend your view with what the record gives, and answer the strongest objection to it: is the gate telling a passer-by who rules, or is O'Kane's reading too strong for what the carving shows?

• Monumental calligraphy in Fatimid Egypt: the chapter's course, from tombstones to the Aqmar Mosque.
• Propaganda coins: the booklet's wider definition and its two examples.
• Badr al-Jamali: the man whose gates the chapter reads.
• Bab al-Nasr: the gate with the added fourth line.

Read the records on propaganda coins and Kufic script. Choose one inscription or coin and write two sentences on who was meant to read it and what it was meant to do.