Other Cultures Project: further information and resources

Practical Hot Tip: when choosing your example from Islamic Art choose a small detail that you particularly like. Enlarge this detail for your A3 sheet of paper rather than trying to replicate the whole image. This will not only make it easier it will also help you to understand better the qualities in this way of creating art.

There are new resources for our Other Cultures project in the Resource Page "Equality and Diversity" on the right of this page.

You will find:

• links to images showing examples from non-figurative medieval Islamic
• links to information on the beliefs and ethics and how these influenced the arts in Islamic countries
• links to information that show how modern the thinking and attitude was towards the arts in medieval Islamic art and culture and how interesting this is when compared to the so-called abstract revolution in 20th century art thinking
• the important role maths was playing in the visual and spiritual works of this culture

From these links:

1. Try to find out why Islamic art did not show the world in a figurative or representative way. 

2. Try to find out why geometry was considered a good metaphor for the spiritual world.
3. Find out how maths came into the thinking behind the art and its meaning.

It's all there in our resource pages and the links. The information is short and clear, it won't take more than say 30 minutes to find the answers so don't panic!