Sometimes in the history of art everything seems to be happening everywhere, all at once. The 16th century was like that. It was a grand global burst of lights. Then there were slowdowns; dimmings, even outages here and there. Such shifts in energy form the background to “Re-Orientations: Islamic Art and the West in the 18th and 19th Centuries,” a superb little scholarly time-bomb of a show at the Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery at Hunter College.

Installation view of “Re-Orientations” at Hunter College.  Photo: Amiaga Architectural Photography

We’ve had major exhibitions on the influence of Islamic culture on Europe. We’ve had relatively few that trace influence the other way, Occident to Orient. Possibly because “Occidentalized” sounds unexotic, 18th- and 19th-century Islamic art has been largely ignored. None of the 30 small decorative objects at Hunter has been exhibited before, though all are from the collection of a major museum.

A fan from Tehran (1883-1884) designed with watercolor and gold on lacquered wood.  Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Which brings us to another — some might say the primary — attraction of the show. The owning institution is the Metropolitan Museum, where the Islamic galleries are closed for renovation. Thus Hunter show, unassuming as it is, is by default the largest display of the Met’s Islamic collection in the city.

A Persian Qajar ceramic tile. Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Western art styles were current in the Mughal court of India in the 16th century, through the circulation of European prints brought by Christian missionaries. Similar influences took root in Iran. A late-17th-century lacquered pen box, the show’s earliest piece, is painted with Persian roses on the outside and a European-style landscape under the lid. And by this time, Ottoman Turkey had also come under the aggressive spell of Western culture.

An album cover from India (1802-03) made of pasteboard, painted in colors and gold, and lacquered. Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art

The lure of exoticism pulled in both directions. Europeans were hungry for Islamic objects and styles. Islamic cultures welcomed input from Europe.

This is immediately evident in the adoption of oil painting, a European invention, by Islamic artists. Qajar court painters made spectacular use of it in life-size royal portraits. This sloe-eyed, androgynous youth holding a wine glass may or may not be royalty, but he is a fine example of a Qajar type.

A portrait of a young man from early 19th-century Iran. Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art

In addition to Western art mediums, Islamic artists borrowed themes and styles. The flowers and birds on a double-page 19th-century album cover from India are Islamic in their patterning, European in their naturalism. A cobalt-blue cut-glass beaker was probably exported from Europe to Iran, then customized on arrival with the addition of a calligraphic inscription in gold.

A cut-glass beaker (1814) from Iran. Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Most of the show is about the blending of Orientalism and Occidentalism. Even when the objects are less than spectacular — Hunter could borrow only modest items — they are rich with information of continuing pertinence. The tensions that modernism produced in the Islamic world have been pushed to the point of explosion by the aggressive marketing of Western values globally in the present. Seen in that perspective, every object in the shows seems to tick with a volatile history.

A swan-neck bottle from Iran (18th through 19th century). Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Lire l'article "When the Islamic World Was Inspired by the West" par Hollant Cotter http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/28/arts/design/28isla.html?ex=1364356800&en=08004ba087629b3b&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

“Re-Orientations: Islamic Art and the West in the 18th and 19th Centuries” is at the Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery at Hunter College, 68th Street and Lexington Avenue, through April 26. (212) 772-4991, hunter.cuny.edu.