Description:

Shah ‘Abbas’ Iran and Global Early Modernity

The reign of Shah ‘Abbas’ has been characterized as the “golden age” of Iranian art and culture. At this time, literature, the arts of the book, and architecture were construed as sophisticated representations of the Shah’s power and authority, and were used to disseminate his imperial vision. This talk focuses on an extraordinary period of Iranian art and history, which cohered with broader trends across the world, such as the consolidation of powerful empires and immense networks, commercial and intellectual, along which information, ideas, and objects circulated. The mobility of works of art, from London to Isfahan to Beijing, may be studied by connecting early modern empires through concepts of kingship, religious authority, and an emerging public sphere. Centering the discourse of Iran highlights the fact that the Islamic world played a central role in global exchange, whether of people, ideas or commodities.

Kishwar Rizvi is Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture and Chair, Council on Middle East Studies at Yale University. Her recent publications include The Transnational Mosque: Architecture and Historical Memory in the Contemporary Middle East, which was the winner of the 2017 Charles Rufus Morey Award from the CAA.

Northwestern University Department of Art History presents the Warnock Lecture Series.

Image credit: Dervish by the Fire, Ascribed to Mir Afzal Tuni, c. 1630, British Museum.