Culture

Paul Klee, the Swiss-German modernist painter, experienced epiphanies during the ‘student trip’ he took with two other young artists to Tunisia in 1914. It was there that he, deeply influenced by the color and the quality of the light (which other European artists have remarked on), he “began his path toward abstraction,” as the brochure […]

Omar Khayyam

Omar Khayyam (209) “those oceans of learning never…”

Juan Cole

Those oceans of learning and culture who burned with the light of science in their day, never found an exit from this pitch-dark night. They delivered themselves […]

Omar Khayyam

Omar Khayyam (442) “I wish there were a place to rest…”

Juan Cole

I wish there were a place to rest or that this long, long road would end; and that a hundred thousand years from now, there were a hope that from the earth we’d bloom to breathe again. Translated by Juan Cole from Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, [pdf] Whinfield 442

art and photography

The Moroccans (Matisse Painting)

Juan Cole

The Moroccans Henri Matisse (French, 1869–1954) Issy-les-Moulineaux, late 1915 and fall 1916. Oil on canvas, 71 3/8″ x 9′ 2″ (181.3 x 279.4 cm). Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel A. Marx. © 2012 Succession H. Matisse, Paris For Matisse in Morocco, see this page. Here is the MOMA audio description: See also my previous […]

art and photography

The Tanks that did not Defeat Misrata (Photo)

Juan Cole

Photograph by Juan Cole, May 2012 Line of tanks that Mu’tasim Qaddafi deployed against the civilians of the city of Misrata, Libya, March-August 2011– destroyed and kept as a memorial outside the city.

Omar Khayyam

Omar Khayyam (493) “I passed a potter at his wheel”

Juan Cole

The other day I passed a potter at his wheel, displaying every moment a new skill; and it occurred to me, though one less clear-eyed wouldn’t see it: It is our ancestors’ clay in a potter’s hands! Translated by Juan Cole from Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, [pdf] Whinfield 493

art and photography

Matisse: “Algerian Woman” (Painting)

Juan Cole

Henri Matisse. The Algerian Woman. 1909. Oil on canvas. Musee National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France The depiction of the Middle East has, since Edward Said’s Orientalism, often been approached in binary terms and in the framework of “power/knowledge” in the tradition of Friedrich Nietzche and Michel Foucault. There is, however, an argument […]

art and photography

Entrance to Grand Mosque, Kairouan

Juan Cole

Photo by Juan Cole, May, 2012 Aghlabid, rebuilt 863. For another traveler’s view of Kairouan, see this blog.

art and photography

Kairouan, Tunisia

Juan Cole

Kairouan, Tunisia, May 2012, from a rooftop. Photo by Juan Cole For more on this UNESCO Heritage City, see this link.