Pattern and Light: The Aga Khan Museum

Description

Opening in 2014 in Toronto, the Aga Khan Museum will be a showplace for Islamic art and culture unlike anything in the Western Hemisphere. This richly illustrated volume features sparkling new photographs of the prize-winning museum and park complex, as well as more than 100 of the rarest and and beautiful examples from one of the most important collections of Islamic art and objects in the world, assembled by His Highness the Aga Khan and members of his family over the last two decades. Visually stunning, Pattern and Light is a compendium of the vast array of objects in the collection: illustrated books and folios, woodworks, ivory carvings, metalwork, ceramics, paintings, sculptures, textiles, and glass--dating from 600 AD to the 18th century and coming from Africa to Spain, Eastern Europe to the Near East, India to Central Asia and China. From the complex geometric designs decorating mosques and minarets which have become familiar, we are treated here also to lesser known marvels such as astrolabes, wondrous textiles and miniatures, and rare volumes of radiant illuminations and calligraphy. Essays by noted scholars cover the design of the building and gardens as well as background on the artifacts.

Henry S. Kim is director and CEO, Assadullah Souren Melikian-Chirvani is senior collections adviser, and Ruba Kana'an is head of education and scholarly programs at the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto. Luis Monreal is general manager, Aga Khan Trust for Culture, Geneva. Philip Jodidio has written numerous books about architecture and art. D. Fairchild Ruggles is professor of landscape history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.