Rome – Three art shows themed after the Arab world are attracting visitors in Paris and Rome up until April 2013. Aladdin, Sinbad the Sailor, Scheherazade and other characters from the classic One Thousand and One Nights book are now showing at the Arab World Institute in Paris. The show was inaugurated this week and will remain open to the public until April 28, 2013.
Over 350 art pieces from the collections of 62 museums around the world are on display. The pieces include rare manuscripts, sculptures, paintings, films, and objects which are actual keys to understanding the famed literary work. The items are originally from institutions such as the Vatican Museum, in Italy, and private collections.
The route proposed by the curators of the Parisian show, Elodie Bouffard and Anne-Alexandra Joyard, starts with the Hindu-Persian genesis, covers the Arabic language stories around the 8th century, and finally the book’s first French translation in Europe, between 1704 and 1717, by Antoine Galland, an Arabic professor at the Collège de France.
Inspiration
According to the curators, the One Thousand and One Nights is one of the most influential works from the 19th century to our days. It has inspired directors in theatre and cinema, such as the Italian Pier Paolo Pasolini and the French Méliès, painters of the likes of Picasso and Magritte, and many other authors in the fields of music, opera, photography and literature. According to Elodie, the book’s stories have always held Europeans spellbound, and thus have become an important link between East and West.
Silk route
The connection between Western and Eastern countries is also the key subject matter of the show Via della Seta (Silk Route), taking place in Rome, Italy, at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni until March 10 next year. Organized by the Museum of Natural History in New York, the show has a didactic curatorial line, featuring roughly 150 objects, including paintings, fabrics, ceramics, machinery and other items, and explains to visitors the amazing adventure of the noble fabric: silk.
The show was divided into five sections, each dedicated to a different city. The route starts in Xi’an, China, capital of the Tang Dynasty (618-907 BC), located in the heart of China’s central plains, marked by religious tolerance, and a solid administrative structure. Xi’an was a major silk manufacturing hub, a pulsating, bristling city from which caravans would leave heading northwest. The second stop is Turpan, in the Taklamakan Desert, which became the first trade hub of the Via della Seta. Turpan became known for using an ancient irrigation system, named Karez, which enabled the economic development of the plantation-laden city.
Samarkand
In Uzbekistan, the city of Samarkand is the main silk route stop. It was known for its good merchants, who could transit freely and often through India, Persia and China. For that reason, in Samarkand luxury consumer goods from various cultures could be found. It was a meeting point for distant peoples. At the show, items found in the city include early paper documents recording commercial transactions, and texts.
The intellectual Baghdad, a centre for peace
Those to whom Baghdad rings a bell only for the ongoing conflicts cannot imagine that during the Silk Route days, the city was a landmark of peace and dialogue. Founded in 762 AD, by the banks of the Tigris River, it was the capital of the Abassid Dynasty (750-1258) and the intellectual capital of the Islamic world. Baghdad was where science and technology research on silk, sailing, glass manufacturing etc. took place. It was also the city of literature and scholars, a thinking hub.
Baghdad was the stopover for travellers to devise their strategies and rethink their routes. The show makes it clear that caravans would leave form the city heading both South, toward the Persian Gulf, and Northwest, across Syria to the Mediterranean Sea, and from there, as maritime trade developed, to the rest of the world. The last of the segments features, Marco Polo, his travels, and Venice.
Diplomatic relations also on show
Lastly, also in Rome, the show The Throne of the Queen of Sheba, at the Giuseppe Tucci National Museum of Oriental Art, open until January 13. Approximately 60 objects are featured, including documents, books, pictures, clothes, jewellery and archaeological items illustrating the relations between Italy and Yemen.
86 years
The items cover a time span of nearly 90 years and were collected by explorers, geographers, writers, archaeologists, and doctors who passed through the Arab country during the period. They learned from Arab culture, but also gave important contributions, especially to the field of archaeology, in cities such as Sana’a and Shabwa.
At the show, visitors will find a selection of photographs and travel documents recording the Italian presence in Yemen between 1877 and 1939. The material was supplied by the Italian Institute for Africa and the East, and the Italian Geographic Society. The most intriguing items include documents from the Italian explorer Renzo Mazoni, an original manuscript, three photographs and a map of the Yemeni capital, drawn in January 1879.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
