Draft: this lesson was written with AI help and has not yet been read by a human editor.
1 What your class asks
This lesson asks you to explain terms for a variety of techniques, materials and tools and to use them correctly. The museum offers terms from three Islamic crafts, pouncing, tile firing and calligraphic measure; the terms of your own studio come from your class. 1
Curriculum expectations, with their official codes
- C1.2 explain terminology related to a variety of techniques, materials, and tools […], and use this terminology correctly and appropriately when creating, analysing, and/or presenting art works
2 Before you start
A thought to carry into the lesson.
3 The lesson
Can you explain the word to someone who has never seen the step?
Pick a term from each record and explain it in two sentences without using the term itself. Then add a small diagram.
Which word do you already use under another name?
Match each term to a step in your own studio. Where there is no match, say what the missing step would be.
Go deeper
One method has two names in two crafts. The record on pouncing gives Norah Titley's description: transparent deerskin was laid over the original and its outline traced, the line closely pricked with a fine needle, then the pricked skin laid on the paper and charcoal dabbed on it from a mesh bag 2. The calligrapher's record describes large jali work. The master made a template, the kalip: the outline of the letters was pricked with a needle through several sheets, and the surface was dusted with charcoal or chalk so the design passed to the sheet below 3. The first record calls the method pouncing; the second calls what the calligrapher made a template.
How do we know?
Titley's example is an object she names: a horseman and lion traced on skin in an album in the Topkapı Palace Museum Library (Hazine 2153) 2. For the calligrapher's template the record cites the description in an encyclopaedia entry, and names no template that survives. So the word pouncing rests on a named object, and the word template on a description.
Think about it
In Titley's description the pricked skin is laid on the paper and charcoal is dabbed through it 2. In the calligrapher's record the outline is pricked through several sheets and dusted with charcoal or chalk 3. Take a position and answer the strongest objection to it: are these one technique with two names, or two techniques?
Into the museum
- Pouncing in Persian painting: the skin, the needle and the charcoal, and the horseman and lion in the Topkapı album.
- Calligrapher (khattat): the template for large lettering, the dot and the mistar.
- Potter / tilemaker: the terms of glaze and firing for tile.
Try this
Read the records on pouncing in Persian painting and the potter. Make a three-column list of the terms you find, a plain explanation of each, and the step in your own work it matches.
4 Carry it further
Where this lesson leads in the museum.
5 Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or sent anywhere. It is for you.
In your own words: what does Pouncing in Persian painting have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
Pouncing. Pouncing was a way of copying a miniature or part of a composition: transparent deerskin was laid over the original and its outline traced, the line closely pricked with a fine needle, then the pricked skin laid on the paper and charcoal dabbed on it from a mesh bag, penetrating the holes to leave a guiding outline. Can you explain the term to a classmate in your own words?
In your own words: what does Potter / tilemaker have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
Cut tile, lustre and mina'i. The TDV entry on glazed tile uses terms a student can learn. Cut tile mosaic is made of turquoise, purple, green and cobalt glazes cut to shape and set in plaster. The Seljuks developed lustre: the design was painted on a glaze with a silver or copper oxide mixture and fired again at low heat. The mina'i technique paints seven colours over a fired glaze and fires it again. Which of these terms could you explain with a diagram?
I can now