The Role of the Community in Artistic Endeavour Essay -- Islamic Grave

The Role of the Community in Artistic Endeavour Imagine a gravestone nearly a metre in height on a large base with incised geometric vine patterns. An elaborately carved collar with lotus motifs on a background pattern of a spider's web is found above this base. In the center of the stone, finely carved inscriptions of Sufi or Islamic mystic poems concerning death executed in Naskh calligraphic style are framed in decorative panels reminiscent of Persian illuminated manuscripts. The poem reads: "Listen. Verily the world is perishable, the world is not everlasting. Verily the world is like a Web woven by a spider" Flanking the inscriptions are elaborate floral motifs that protrude outwards and curl upwards, resembling wings. This whole arrangement is surmounted by a multi-tiered arrangement of forms symbolizing Mount Meru, the abode of Hindu gods, with the Muslim profession of faith or shahadah inscribed upon it. This stone is but one of several styles of a type of gravestones known as Batu Aceh (Type C, Appendix). Batu Aceh are a highly distinctive genre of early Southeast Asian Islamic gravestones manufactured in Aceh, North Sumatra from the late 13th century to the 19th century and exported to various parts of the Malay-Indonesian Archipelago. They were elaborately carved and expensive, and were a mark of distinction, being reserved for the graves of royalty and other important or wealthy persons. Although produced to mark Muslim graves, they are peculiar in exhibiting motifs drawn from Hindu and Buddhist religious philosophy. In this aspect they belong to the wider tradition of syncretism in Southeast Asian art and culture, in its inherent tendency to combine or reconcile differing beliefs and traditions. Can Bat... ...s directly to indigenous aesthetic ideals, the harmonious combination of Hindu/Buddhist, Islamic as well as indigenous elements in Batu Aceh not only proves the resilience of the underlying autochthonous culture and tradition, but points also to the creative synthesis and adaptive flexibility expressed by their anonymous carvers. Works Cited Othman bin Mohd. Yatim. Batu Aceh: Early Islamic gravestones in Peninsular Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur: United Selangor Press, 1988 Bougas, Wayne A. "Some Early Islamic Tombstones in Patani" In JMBRAS vol. 59 part 1 1986 Best, David. The Rationality of Feeling: Understanding The Arts in Education. London: The Falmer Press, 1992 Hall, D G E. A History of South-East Asia. London: Macmillan, 1985 Bourassa, Stephen C. The Aesthetics of Landscape. London: Belhaven Press, 1991 Last updated: 24 June, 2003