The sacred art of Kufic calligraphy: an aesthetic reflection

Valérie González, an expert on Islamic visual culture, gave this conference in Casa Árabe.
One of the most important forms of artistic expression in Islam is Kufic calligraphy. It was precisely in this form of writing that God’s word in the Qur’an was taken down with devotion at the beginnings of Islam’s history.
Valérie González analyzed the role played by writing and calligraphy, and more specifically Kufic writing, as artistic paradigms in Islamic logocentrism at this conference. She examined masterpieces of Kufic calligraphy used in different media, such as books, architecture and objects created by artists, to show how the sacred human act of setting down Divine Revelation in writing gave rise to a sublimating visualization that transcended beyond just religious art. A special emphasis was placed on the Samanid ceramics of the tenth and eleventh centuries, whose wonderful calligraphic decoration blurs the border between the ordinary and the extraordinary, so deeply rooted within the West’s aesthetic consciousness.
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