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So to point out some problematic elements that seem to be overshadowed by the multimedia format of this piece and the focus on visual analysis...a
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/04/02/arts/design/shah-jahan-chitarman.html
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/04/02/arts/design/shah-jahan-chitarman.html
1 - "But soon Indian artists would encounter another tradition of immense refinement, from a faraway source. That source was Persia."
why is "Persia," which is continuously conflated here with other Persianate cultures, a "faraway source"? Since when?
why is "Persia," which is continuously conflated here with other Persianate cultures, a "faraway source"? Since when?
(con'td) And how do we just go from Timurid Persianate art as influence and skip over the Safavids entirely? like the earlier painting of Jahangir embracing Shah Abbas is RIGHT THERE
2 - "The son who succeeded [Shah Jahan], in a bloody struggle, was a Muslim fundamentalist who cared little for the arts."
"Fundamentalist" is an anachronistic term that tells me more about the writer than the person he is writing about. D+
"Fundamentalist" is an anachronistic term that tells me more about the writer than the person he is writing about. D+
3 - "By 1858, the British crown took over. The Mughal empire faded away, though not its allure."
Really. The Mughal empire just happened to "fade away" as the British crown "took over." That's one way to soft-pedal colonialism I guess
Really. The Mughal empire just happened to "fade away" as the British crown "took over." That's one way to soft-pedal colonialism I guess
4 - "It’s a Muslim masterpiece made 2,500 miles from Mecca." --> I'm sorry what. WHO TALKS LIKE THIS. Also no one tell this guy you will find Muslims doing things even farther away from Mecca
5 - "Elsewhere, Muslim artists abjured images. In Central Asia, however, they depicted lovers in gardens or princes on horseback. (Some even pictured Muhammad himself.)"
That "elsewhere" is doing a lot of work here. Too bad that work is lazy af. D+
That "elsewhere" is doing a lot of work here. Too bad that work is lazy af. D+
This kind of language functions on the presumption that elite visual artistic production (w/the appropriate level of religious cosmopolitanism) reflects an enlightened Muslim discourse that is in contrast to "fundamentalism." Just as ShahJahan is depicted as the center of a halo,
...the author frames Mughal rule as an exceptional form of Muslim engagement with both art and non-Muslims, on whose peripheries--"elsewhere" and "faraway"--Muslims lie in darkness, as evidenced by the "abjur[ing] of images," neither of which are actually historically true
It is a subtle but very specific politics at play here. We can discern whom the author is thinking of when he anachronistically refers to "fundamentalism" and name-checks Mecca seemingly out of nowhere. The eschewing of any Safavid references also fits this political framing.
And of course there is a lot to be said when Europeans are depicted as gently taking over and then simply become part of the visual analysis
