Focus On: Muqarnas

My usual Art of the Week format (which actually happens every, oh, 2 months or so) is to discuss art from the IU art museum. However, as that building is closed for the summer for restoration (because IM Pei is not very good and we have a leaky giant glass roof which is a wee bit of a safety hazard) I am bringing you something very different today: MUQARNAS.
Muqarnas domes are some of the most amazing, awe-inspiring things I have ever seen--and I've never even seen one in person! I first heard of and saw them in my Islamic Survery class last Fall, so most of this info is cribbed from my notes. Muqarnas were the brainchild of the Mongol-Ilkhanids. In my very not-well formed opinion, the Ilkhanids are the most fascinating era of Islamic art. Their dynasty lasted from 1250-1350ish, and they were Mongols who moved into Persia (now Iran) and conquered the land there--but actually, the land conquered THEM, too. They converted to Islam and settled down, bringing some Mongol-nomad architectural styles with them and making them permanent (I almost said "concretesized them," but that is nerdy and I don't think that is even a word!) AND Ilkhanid artists produced stunning stunning stunning manuscripts, because many of the artists were from other areas and the Mongols brought them with them to Persia as war-booty. Hint: I wrote a paper about the Ilkhanids a few months ago. And I totally dig them.But ANYWAY. Muqarnas. In 1275, the summer palace of Takht-i Sulayman was built, and is the only Ilkhanid palace that is currently extant. The building is constructed of circular or octagonal areas, which is weird since those shapes were usually used for mausoleums, but Mongol Yurts (tents) were usually circular, so this may be a nod to their heritage. And found in one of these octagonal areas was a slab, an early blueprint (which is super cool, by the way) of a Muqarnas dome.
Muqarnas means "place of cornices," and is a dome composed of many, many niches. They are often described as faceted, prismatic, or honeycombed--or at least, that is how my professor described them. The woman has a way with words! There are many benefits to a muqarnas dome: they add volume when you need volume (the Ilkhanids liked to make things as big as possible), there are no intrinsic limits in size, and no finite composition, so you could make the structure as big as your resources would let you. The mathematician al-Kashi described it as "a ceiling like staircases with facets". They are almost gemlike in their appearance, like you live in a diamond. I've had a rotating series of muqarnas images as the background on my computer for the past week, as they remind me that this is why I am taking Arabic.

More images!
(I'm not going attempt to identify all of these, as I don't know enough about them all, nor do I trust Google to steer me correctly! I know some are from Isfahan and at least one is from the Timurid Gur-i Mir, but I am not sure about the rest.)

Intrigued? Check out a post that my friend Aleah over at Artgazer wrote a while back about the Gur-i Mir. The Timurids, as you will see, were also Mongol descendents and nearly as interesting as the Ilkhanids--all of those rulers had so much hubris! (Why DO I love rulers with hubris AND their art?? This explains my love of 17th century popes, too.)