Modern Arab Art: Formation of Arab Aesthetics by Nada M. Shabout (review)

Mashriq & Mahjar 6, no. 1 (2019), 119–126 ISSN 2169-4435 NADA M. SHABOUT, Modern Arab Art: Formation of Arab Aesthetics (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007). Pp. 208. $22.50 paper. ISBN 9780813061269. REVIEWED BY ALLISON CONNOLLY, Associate Professor of French and Humanities, Centre College, Danville, KY, email: allison.connolly@centre.edu In the West, the concept of Arab art remains nebulous, and the work of twentieth- and twenty-first-century Arab artists is virtually unknown. Nada M. Shabout’s monograph makes a groundbreaking contribution to scholarship on art by acknowledging, defining, documenting, and explaining modern Arab art and the development of its aesthetics since the colonial period. Shabout is professor of art history and the coordinator of the Contemporary Arab and Muslim Cultural Studies Institute (CAMCSI) at the University of North Texas. She has curated several exhibitions and was a Fulbright Senior Scholar in Jordan in 2008. She possesses extensive knowledge of Arab and Western cultures that allows her to put the two in dialogue with one another. In Modern Arab Art: Formation of Arab Aesthetics, Shabout painstakingly describes the evolution of artistic movements in the Arab world in the twentieth century. In doing so, she uncovers the influence of Western art and philosophy on modern Arab art all the while tracing the interconnected nature of Arab and Islamic art. The volume advances two arguments: first, that European influence during the Ottoman Empire prompted a shift from Islamic to Arabic aesthetics. Second, Shabout contends that “there is a correlation between the development of new forms of art and Arabs’ understanding of the concept of modernity, as well as an interrelation between the development of the modern artistic process and that of politics” (10). She argues that the roots of modern Arab art do not lie in Islamic manuscript illumination or calligraphy, but rather in the contemporary lives of artists in the Arab world. Modern Arab art thus encompasses heterogeneous regions and viewpoints. Reviews 120 Modern Arab Art is divided into three parts. There is a preface, an introduction, and a conclusion. Included in the volume are forty black-and-white figures, as well as thirty-two color plates. These visuals add a vitality to the argument. The images enable the reader to gain an initial comprehension of the images that Shabout analyzes. A small reproduction, even in color, will never create the experience of being face-to-face with a work of art, but they serve as a point of entry to the works and allow for a more immediate appreciation of the author’s analysis. The preface underlines the complex plurality of Arab identities: “The sociopolitical developments of the last twenty years and the reversion to localized identities have enhanced the cultural variations within the concept of ‘Arab,’ albeit without denying their unifying elements” (xiv). Shabout proposes that we interpret Arab art in this vein of multiplicity, “embracing a variety of styles and life experiences” (xiv). Titled The Polemics of Modern Arab Art, the introduction pointedly unknits the terms “Islamic art” and “Arabic art,” which are often used interchangeably. “The majority of Western art historians tend to ignore its [Arab plastic arts’] existence. The handful who notice it would nevertheless still consider modern and contemporary Arab art as nothing but a linear continuation of the admittedly better known Islamic art” (1). The historical association between the spread of Islam and the Arabic language have led to the conflation of Islamic art and Arabic art in the West. Shabout distinguishes between the two, defining “Arab art” as “that art produced by those who consider themselves part of the Arab world, which consists of twenty-four states spanning the Near East and North Africa and embracing many ethnic groups and sects” (3). The Arab world exists within the Islamic world, but since most Muslims reside outside the Arab world, the term “Islamic art” is not an accurate or sufficient label for the artistic production of those twenty-four states. The second half of the introduction provides a brief historical overview of Islamic and Christian encounters since the Middle Ages, highlighting the age of colonialism and the development of Orientalism as two elements that dramatically impacted Arab societies. “While colonial...