7.2 Purpose and Audience in West and Central Asian Art

Two world religions shape much of this region's art. Buddhism began in South Asia in the 500s BCE and spread into Central Asia and Tibet. Islam began in Arabia in the 600s CE. Pilgrimage, traveling to a holy place, matters in both, and three works in this unit are pilgrimage goals: the Kaaba, the Dome of the Rock and the Jowo Rinpoche.

Audiences varied. Some works served whole communities of worshippers or monks; others were made for royal and wealthy patrons, and some reached foreign rulers and collectors as gifts or through trade.

Every mosque has a qibla wall facing Mecca, with a mihrab, an empty niche, showing the direction of prayer. Large congregational mosques may add a minbar (pulpit), a minaret (tower for the call to prayer) and a courtyard. Mosque decoration uses calligraphy, geometric patterns and plant forms, not figures.

The Kaaba (Mecca, Saudi Arabia; Islamic; pre-Islamic monument, rededicated by Muhammad in 631–632 CE, multiple renovations; granite masonry, covered with silk curtain and calligraphy in gold and silver-wrapped thread). The Kaaba ("cube") is Islam's most sacred site. Muslims believe Abraham and his son Ishmael built it to worship one God. Before Islam it held many idols; Muhammad cleared them out and rededicated it to God alone.

Its form is simple: a nearly empty granite building with the Black Stone set in its eastern corner. Its power comes from use. Muslims everywhere pray facing it, so it sets the qibla for every mosque. During the Hajj, the pilgrimage every Muslim who is able should make once, pilgrims walk around it seven times counterclockwise. The kiswa, a black silk cover embroidered with Qur'an verses in gold- and silver-wrapped thread, is replaced every year. The building has been rebuilt and repaired many times.

Jowo Rinpoche (Lhasa, Tibet; Yarlung Dynasty; believed to have been brought to Tibet in 641 CE; gilt metals with semiprecious stones, pearls, and paint; various offerings). This statue of the Buddha Shakyamuni as a young prince is the most sacred image in Tibet. Tradition says it was made in the Buddha's lifetime and came to Tibet with the Chinese princess Wencheng, who married King Songtsen Gampo. It now sits in the Jokhang Temple.

Over centuries, devotees and rulers have added a crown, jewels, robes and gold, so the statue's body is almost hidden. Those additions are the point: each one is an act of devotion. Pilgrims circle the temple, prostrate themselves, offer white scarves and butter lamps, and hope to see the image. The work is never finished, because worship keeps changing it.

Great Mosque (Masjid-e Jameh) (Isfahan, Iran; Islamic, Persian: Seljuk, Il-Khanid, Timurid and Safavid Dynasties; c. 700 CE, additions and restorations in the 14th, 18th and 20th centuries CE; stone, brick, wood, plaster and glazed ceramic tile). "Jameh" means congregational: this is where the whole city gathered for Friday prayer. It grew over a thousand years, so it records changing rulers and tastes.

Its Seljuk plan became a model for Iran: a courtyard with four iwans (tall vaulted halls open on one side), one in the middle of each side. The largest iwan, on the qibla side, leads to a brick dome chamber before the mihrab. Iwans are lined with muqarnas, honeycomb-like vaulting. Later dynasties added a carved stucco mihrab in the Il-Khanid period and brilliant tile mosaics under the Timurids and Safavids.

The Court of Gayumars, folio from Shah Tahmasp's Shahnama (Sultan Muhammad; c. 1522–1525 CE; ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper). Gayumars is the first king in the Shahnama. He rules from a mountain, and his court wears leopard skins. Sultan Muhammad filled the page with dozens of figures, animals, glowing rocks hiding faces, and tiny details.

The audience explains the detail. This was a royal book for Shah Tahmasp, the young Safavid ruler, viewed up close by him and a few courtiers, who could spend time finding every hidden face. The painter Dust Muhammad, writing in 1544, praised it above all the book's pictures. The finished manuscript, with 258 paintings, was later given to the Ottoman sultan Selim II as a diplomatic gift; it is now dispersed, and this page is in the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto.