Unified multiplicities : Arabic letters between modernity, identity, and abstraction

Doctoral Thesis

***Please note that the print and digital version of this thesis are not identical as to the order of the various parts of the front and back matter.***Following the emergence of concepts related to Arab nationalism there was a clear struggle between the progressive thinkers who wanted to secure a secular society and release public life from religion, and the conformists who wanted to maintain their traditional practices. This research proposes a critical understanding of letterist abstraction works of art by devising a tool that allows scholars to place a letterist work of art on a spectrum of abstraction in relationship to different elements in the painting. It is a way to understand the artworks and their artists in relationship to each other. Understanding letterists abstraction artists and the dynamics that dictated their work was essential for understanding the movement and its artistic production.The research places the life and work of letterist...Show more***Please note that the print and digital version of this thesis are not identical as to the order of the various parts of the front and back matter.***Following the emergence of concepts related to Arab nationalism there was a clear struggle between the progressive thinkers who wanted to secure a secular society and release public life from religion, and the conformists who wanted to maintain their traditional practices. This research proposes a critical understanding of letterist abstraction works of art by devising a tool that allows scholars to place a letterist work of art on a spectrum of abstraction in relationship to different elements in the painting. It is a way to understand the artworks and their artists in relationship to each other. Understanding letterists abstraction artists and the dynamics that dictated their work was essential for understanding the movement and its artistic production.The research places the life and work of letterist abstraction artists in a wider artistic, social and political context, thus helping the reader form an understanding of the movement from a broader perspective. By tracing all the threads for the assessment of letterist abstraction works of art and artists, I hope to encourage the emergence of more such scholarly and critical works, until we have a better critical understanding of the contemporary Arab art scene as a whole.Show less

Art

Calligraphy