Arabic inscriptions in Islamic and European art follow one of three basic
forms: those which are legible, those containing either abbreviations or are of
an unclear form, and those which appear completely decorative and are commonly
referred to as pseudo-Kufic, pseudo-inscription, or pseudo-epigraphy. The
latter has the appearance of Arabic inscriptions, though pseudo-Kufic lacks
strict linguistic meanings or translatability, often appearing as purely
decorative. In a broad cultural context, Kufic epigraphy has been documented in
architecture, textile, painting, coins, crosses, and other items and forms of
material culture from Ireland[1] to China[2] during the Western medieval period and beyond. While legible Kufic
epigraphy has been studied as clear markers of cultural identity and praised as
primary sources in the development of Arabic calligraphy and culture,[3] pseudo-Kufic has been relegated to the underappreciated art historical
corner of decoration, illiterate copying, or the occult.
The Venice
Cup of the San Marco Treasury features pseudo-Kufic script around the edge
of the lip as well as on the base. The gilded and enamelled glass bowl or cup
features seven larger medallions of various mythological figures framed by
fourteen smaller medallions depicting heads in profile. Flower designs further
encompass the main medallions in red, blue, green, and yellow while the cup’s
silver handles with blue gem inserts are more likely a latter edition. Originally
the cup was interpreted as an “updated” antique bowl by Emile Molinier.[4]
However, Anthony Cutler and Ioli Kalavrezou are but some who have linked the
cup to Constantinople as a point of origin and specifically to the Macedonian
renaissance (867-1056 C.E.). For Kalavrezou ‘the cup does not revive classical
art, but holds onto the last remnants of a source of subject whose validity was
now less in the subject matter than in the conveyance of a certain form or
appearance’.[5]
Yet, it is in Alicia Walker’s examination of the pseudo-Kufic inscriptions,
which bring to question the occult, Classical, luxurious, and Islamic aspects
of the Venice Cup.
 |
| Venice Cup |
The occult
practices in Byzantium and the surrounding Islamic territories provide some
cultural links between the two cultures and offers further explanations for the
use of pseudo-Kufic on the Venice Cup. ‘It has long been a popular Islamic
belief that letters would exert some magical force if written in special ways’[6]
which can be seen in a pseudo-Kufic inscriptions in a fifteenth-century Syrian
brass casket lids, in magic-medicinal bowls in the twelfth century,[7]
and in Islamic seals from the seventh and eighth-centuries which were
transformed into apotropaic devices.[8]
A ninth-century astrologer Balkh Abū Ma‘shar teaches his student Abū Sa‘īd
Shādhān in De revolutionibus the lineage of astrological study,
beginning with the Chaldeans and then the Indians, Syrians, and finally the
Arabs.[9]
The tenth-century Byzantine Souda states ‘that sorcery and magic were
invented by the ancient Persians and Medes’[10]
which demonstrates a similar worldview by both Byzantine and Arabic sources.
From the Byzantine perspective, the language, and thus the visual formal
elements of Arabic can be seen as connected with studies in the occult and
sciences.
In
terms of the epigraphy of the Venice Cup, Walker notes instances of
undecipherable Arabic inscriptions in occult contexts to explain how
pseudo-Kufic ‘is still potentially significant, its cryptic character contributing
to its esoteric and magic value...[and] can function as an occult language much
as the Ephesia grammata of the Greek magic tradition’.[11]
Walker links the depictions in the larger medallions to Greco-Roman gods, and
their astrological counterparts, creating a strong argument for the use of the
cup in ‘lecanomantic hydromantic practices’.[12]
While the tradition of divination was wide spread and gained imperial support
for a time, the Venice Cup can be understood in more than simply occult
terms. The connection between pseudo-Kufic and luxury objects is established
both in Islamic sources as well as in Byzantine chronicles and letters. This
demonstrates ‘that a shared culture of shared objects implies a certain
commonality of court behaviour and of court practices’, as objects depicting
inscriptions are stated in Kitab al-Dhakha’iras gifts between Arabic and
Byzantine sources, both internally and externally.[13]
 |
| Detail of Apollo |
Perhaps
the explanation lies within the Kufic script itself as a plastic formal element
designed for increasingly complicated and abstracted forms. ‘The birth of Kufic
represented, in many ways, a radical break with the past in which Hijazi had
still been anchored. The rules that were defined at the outset of the Kufic
tradition essentially remained the same throughout its lifetime’.[17]
Alain George seeks to explain this phenomenon in his work The Rise of
Islamic Calligraphy by addressing the geometric nature imbedded in the
design of Arabic. George writes, ‘Kufic, in sum, was built upon a geometric
expansion that linked its elements, from the thickness of the pen to the page,
through a series of proportional relationships’.[18]
Ultimately, the question of why pseudo-Kufic became a popular form in both
Muslim and non-Muslim art forms can be more readily answered in that
pseudo-Kufic functioned through its iconographical use, i.e. luxury or occult,
and through the formal elements inherit to the construction of the script which
allowed it be used in increasingly plastic means.
-Samuel
Figures:
Venice Cup,
Byzantine, ca. 10th Century, Glass, gilded and painted, silver-gilt,
stones, Height 170 mm, Diameter 170 mm, Overall width 330 mm, Tesoro, no. 109,
Venice.
[1]Petersen, Andrew.
2008. ‘The Archaeology of Islam in Britain: Recognition and Potential’, Antiquity,
82: 1082.
[2] Aanavi, Don. 1970. Islamic Pseudo Inscriptions (Ann Arbor,
University Microfilms International): 15.
[3] Sauvaget, Jean.
1965. Introduction to the History of the Muslim East: A Bibliographical Guide
(London, Cambridge University Press): 52
[4] Buckton, David.
1985. The Treasury of San Marco
(Milan, Olivetti): 182.
[5] Ibid., 278.
[6] Aanavi, Don. 1970. Islamic Pseudo Inscriptions (Ann Arbor,
University Microfilms International): 83; Porter, Venetia. 2004. ‘Islamic
Seals: Magical or Practical?’, Magic and
Divination in Early Islam (Surrey, Ashgate Publishing Limited): 187.
[7] Savage-Smith, Emilie et al.
1997. Science, Tools, and Magic: Part
One: Body and Spirit, Mapping the Universe (Oxford, Oxford University
Press): 73.
[8] Porter, Venetia. 2004. ‘Islamic
Seals: Magical or Practical?’, Magic and
Divination in Early Islam (Surrey, Ashgate Publishing Limited): 184.
[9] Pingree, David. 1989. Classical
and Byzantine Astrology in Sassanian Persia’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 43:
227.
[10] Walker, Alice. 2008. ‘Meaningful Mingling:
Classicizing Imagery and Islamicizing Script in a Byzantine Bowl’, The Art Bulletin, 90: 44.
[11] Ibid.,
46.
[12] Ibid.,
47-52.
[13] Weitzmann,
Kurt. 1981. ‘Representations of Hellenic Oracles in Byzantine Manuscripts’, Classical
Heritage in Byzantine and Near Eastern Art (London,
Variorum Reprints): 409
[14] Kalavrezou, Ioli. 2007. ‘The Cup of San Marco and
the “Classical” in Byzantium’, Late Antique
and Medieval Art of the Mediterranean World (Oxford, Blackwell Publishing):
282.
[15] Grabar, Oleg. 2010.
‘The Shared Culture of Objects’, Islamic
Visual Culture, 1100-1800: Constructing the Study of Islamic Art, Volume II
(Surrey, Ashgate Publishing Limited):
51-67
[16] Culter, Anthony. 2008. ‘Significant Gifts:
Patterns of Exchange in Late Antique, Byzantine, and Early Islamic Diplomacy’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies,
38: 92.
[17] George, Alan. 2010. The Rise of Islamic
Calligraphy (London, SAQI): 55
[18] Ibid., 57.
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