Art and the society that made it

What your class asks

This lesson asks you to explain, from research, how knowing the cultural and historical context of an art work has clarified its meaning, and how works respond to and reflect the society that made them. The museum offers three cases: glass, painting and tile. The research and the comparison with other works come from your class. ¹

Curriculum expectations, with their official codes

B1.3 explain, with reference to particular works, both historical and contemporary […], how knowledge of an art work’s cultural and historical context, achieved through research, has clarified and enriched their understanding of the work’s intent and meaning
B2.2 explain, on the basis of research, ways in which various art works are a response to and a reflection of the society in which they were created […]

Before you start

A thought to carry into the lesson.

The lesson

What did the maker have, and who paid?

List the materials, techniques and patrons each record names. Say which of them you think explains the work best, and what else you would need to find out to be sure.

How does the work reflect its society?

Choose one feature of a work and show what it tells you about the people who made or ordered it. Mark what the record says and what you are inferring.

Go deeper

Follow the changing patron of one studio. Milo Cleveland Beach writes that the emperor Akbar placed the Iranians Mir Sayyid Ali and Abd al-Samad in charge of the painting studios, and that what emerged was a new style mixing Indian and Safavid elements ². Under Jahangir the work was organised differently: he preferred small books with few, fine illustrations and single pictures for his albums, and discouraged the Akbari division of one picture among a designer, a colourist and a portraitist ³ ⁴. When Aurangzeb withdrew from active patronage in the 1660s, many painters moved to provincial governors and nobles ⁵.

How do we know?

A name in a record can be a signature, an attribution or an inference. An incised cartouche on the Kaykawus tomb at Sivas gives the master's name as Merendli, and Muhammad al-Majnun is written in tile in the Yesil mosque's royal lodge, which the TDV entry calls the craftsman's signature ⁶. The work at the Yesil mosque is attributed to Ali ibn Ilyas Ali of Bursa ⁶. For a painter's patron, Beach only suggests that Dara Shikoh may have patronised the new direction, since so many major works show him ⁷. The TDV entry does not describe a kiln, a guild or an apprenticeship, and it is about architectural tile, not vessels ⁶.

Think about it

Jahangir changed how pictures were made, and Ali ibn Ilyas, in the entry's account, learned new techniques at Samarkand. Use the records, and answer the strongest objection to your view: who shapes a work more, the person who pays or the maker who knows the craft?

Into the museum

Mughal painting: the studios under Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan.
Potter / tilemaker: the makers' names and what the TDV entry says about each.
Glassmaking in the early Islamic world: the glass industry and the capitals that drew it.

Try this

Read the records on glassmaking in the early Islamic world and Mughal painting. Write a paragraph that explains one work by its patron or its materials, and underline the sentence that comes from the record.

Carry it further

Where this lesson leads in the museum.

Check yourself

Nothing here is marked or sent anywhere. It is for you.

Which of these did you meet in this lesson?

Zellij (Maghrebi tile mosaic)

Not in this lesson. Look again at the cards above.

Arabesque

Not in this lesson. Look again at the cards above.

Mughal painting

Yes. That is the one from this lesson.

In your own words: what does Glassmaking in the early Islamic world have to do with this lesson?

Compare with the card

Glass, ash and capitals. By the tenth century the old glassmaking industry and its markets had been transformed: natron-type glass ceased in the traditional centres of the Levant and Egypt, and new recipes based on plant ash emerged. Nadine Schibille ties changes to new capitals; Umayyad Damascus, for one, imported large consignments of mosaic tesserae for the Great Umayyad Mosque and palaces. How can materials and patrons help explain what glassworkers made?

In your own words: what does Mughal painting have to do with this lesson?

Compare with the card

A style made in a royal studio. Milo Cleveland Beach writes that a recognisable Mughal style was formed under Akbar, who placed the Iranians Mir Sayyid Ali and Abd al-Samad in charge of the painting studios; what emerged mixed Hindu (Rajput) and Muslim Indian elements with those of Safavid Iran. European prints were the source of new techniques of shading. What can a painting's patron and studio tell you about its meaning?

I can now

B1.3explain, with reference to particular works, both historical and contemporary […], how knowledge of an art work’s cultural and historical context, achieved through research, has clarified and enriched their understanding of the work’s intent and meaning
B2.2explain, on the basis of research, ways in which various art works are a response to and a reflection of the society in which they were created […]

1 What your class asks

2 Before you start

3 The lesson