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Darrera modificació: 2009-02-15
Bases de dades: Sciència.cat
Kerner, Jaclynne J., Art in the name of science: Illustrated manuscripts of the Kitab al-diryaq, tesi doctoral de la New York University (Institute of Fine Arts), 2004, 543 pp.
- Resum
- Dissertation focused on text-image relationships in the two extant illustrated manuscripts of the Kitab al-diryaq (Book of the Theriac, a.k.a. Book of Antidotes). The treatise is pseudo-Galenic, and written in Arabic. Its illustrations include 'scientific' illustrations of snakes and materia medica, explanatory drawings of nine ancient physicians preparing their theriac recipes, and narrative illustrations of anecdotes that form part of the biographical accounts of the physicians.
This dissertation seeks to contribute to the understanding of two manuscript copies of the Kitab al-diryaq [Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, arabe 2964, dated 1199 CE, and Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, A.F. 10, thirteenth century CE] as illustrated books. This interdisciplinary study departs from traditional art-historical methodology, and approaches the impetus for the illustration of the Kitab al-diryaq as a function of the intersection of literary and artistic trends.
The first section of the study 'situates' the text within the history of Arabic literature. While the treatise has traditionally been regarded as a scientific, or 'pseudo-scientific' work, a close reading of the text reveals its true identity. In form, the Kitab al-diryaq is an Arabic biographical dictionary, a characteristic form of Arabic biographical literature. In content, the treatise concerns thetheriac, the famed 'universal antidote' of Antiquity. The book's unifying feature as a collective biography is the physicians' contribution to the development of the theriac; each physician's recipe follows his biography.
The Kitab al-diryaq manuscripts date to a period that saw the flowering of book illustration and an overall expansion of figural imagery in Islamic art. In Arabic literature, the period saw the peak in popularity of the literary genre of biography. Building upon this new understanding of the Kitab al-diryaq's text, this dissertation presents a new interpretation of the artistic significance of the manuscripts now in Paris and Vienna. The construction of an analytical typology for the manuscripts' illustrations leads to the conclusion that they form a text-specific pictorial program comprising an open cycle of portraiture. In contrast to previous scholarship, this study proposes that the manuscripts' biographical form provided a strong impulse to figural illustration.
The problematic issue of the manuscripts' provenance is addressed in the concluding section of the study. Based on stylistic and iconographic affinities with other artistic media, the Kitab al-diryaq manuscripts are usually attributed to Northern Mesopotamia. This dissertation considers the relationship of the illustrated Kitab al-diryaq with unillustrated, but carefully illuminated, manuscripts that are probably Syrian in origin, and suggests a new center of patronage and/or production for manuscripts historically attributed to Northern Mesopotamia.
- Matèries
- Medicina - Farmacologia
Àrab
Il·lustracions
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