Colour, Light and Wonder in Islamic Art

The experience of colour in Islamic visual culture has

historically been overlooked. In this new approach, Idries Trevathan examines

the language of colour in Islamic art and architecture in dialogue with its

aesthetic contexts, offering insights into the pre-modern Muslim experience of

interpreting colour.

The seventeenth-century Shah Mosque in Isfahan, Iran, represents

one of the finest examples of colour-use on a grand scale. Here, Trevathan

examines the philosophical and mystical traditions that formed the mosque's

backdrop. He shows how careful combinations of colour and design proportions in

Islamic patterns express knowledge beyond that experienced in the corporeal

world, offering another language with which to know and experience God. Colour

thus becomes a spiritual language, calling for a re-consideration of how we

read Islamic aesthetics.