A History of Art History, by Christopher S. Wood

Abstract

from European Christian contexts to construct images related to Islamic visions of the occult and the apocalypse. Beyond attesting to the importance of common revered figures, such as Mary and Jesus, in the Islamic tradition, Fetvacı shows that this engagement did not lead to stylistic inspiration. Instead, these prints were “carriers of information” (147). As such, the reception of Christian devotional images was not uniform at early modern Islamic courts; as Fetvacı points out, the way the Ottomans employed Christian devotional images while remaining loyal to their own visual idiom stands in contrast to how they were used in Mughal India.5 What did the collection of such diverse works of art and literature mean in the context of Sultan Ahmed’s overall goals? “By framing artworks from disparate places and times with contemporary, Ottoman illumination,” Fetvacı writes, “[Ahmed] lays claim to the materials and asserts that the aesthetics of the present moment (amply represented in the artworks included in the album) are superior to that of previous moments or different places” (86). Thus, while Ahmed’s album confirms our expectations within a history of art, its makers’ connoisseurial choices and visual strategies advanced a hierarchy among its diverse artworks, between contemporary Ottoman material and past and present artworks from East and West. Stimulated by these arguments, this reader wondered whether Mughal albums could have served as references of more detailed comparison, especially in the last chapter. In Emperor Jahangir’s now dispersed album, known as the Muraqqaʿ -i Gulshan, Mughal illuminations frame European religious imagery and Timurid and Safavid works (for example, calligraphic specimens by nastaʿ līq masters such as Mir ʿAli of Herat).6 The flowers and animals in Ahmed’s album also call to mind the prominence of those themes in Mughal albums. That emperor’s regal title, Jahangir—literally meaning “World Seizer”—also invites comparison with Ahmed’s broader ambitions. Of course, these might be questions to examine in a separate study. Perhaps a conclusion charting some future directions of research could have lent greater force to the overall aspirations of the book. In The Album of the World Emperor, Fetvacı advances a deeply learned argument that places actual and abstract juxtapositions within Ottoman and Perso-Islamic bookmaking and reading/viewing traditions. It rightly presents its material as “a local manifestation of the interconnected globe” (6). It promises to traverse some of the seemingly insurmountable boundaries between art historical fields focusing on Europe and the Islamic world. Fetvacı’s exemplary scholarship should therefore inspire Islamic art historians and early modernists interested in contacts and exchanges more broadly.