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Lecture
Aesthetics of the Veil. Textile Mentality Walid El Khachab
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Art historian Dominique Clévenot defines classical Muslim art by the predominance of the « aesthetics of the veil ». The image of the veil is fundamental in the Muslim imaginary in women’s traditional outlook, in the principles of urban and architectural organization, as well as in the founding texts which use the metaphor of the veil hiding the Divine, in order to signify its inaccessibility and magnificence. Clévenot notes that the veil is so important that it shapes the representation of the Human body in classical Muslim art, where it is always covered by outfits resembling screens that hide flesh.
Another art historian, Lisa Golombek envisages the veil phenomenon as part of the larger frame of the Arab Islamic mentality she calls “Textile Mentality”. According to her, the predominance of mural ornamentations and arabesques in Islamic aims at producing a textile effect, in accordance with this mentality that tends to cover everything with textile.
This analysis is relevant for a reflection on Islamic art, but it becomes more articulate if integrated to a comparative perspective. The aesthetic effect of the veil and the predilection for the textile effect are present in other cultures. The veil and fabric aesthetics is an aesthetic paradigm which privileges the « hidden » and the two dimensional, which can be found in Klimt and Klee as well as in many artistic works from the Muslim Middle Ages. This paradigm is opposed to another one which privileges the “nude”, the « uncovered » and the three dimensional. This latter paradigme prevails in Greco-Latin statuary, but is also encountered in the works of many contemporary artists of Muslim origins.
Short Biography :: Walid El Khachab
Walid El Khachab has established the Arabic Studies Program at the Montreal based Concordia University in 2004. Since 2007, he is Assistant Professor in Arabic Studies at the Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics, York University.
Author of a Comparative Literature dissertation on Melodrama in Egypt, Walid El Khachab has extensively published on Sufi motifs in modern popular culture, on cinema and literature. He is currently working on a book on the Rhetoric of Melodrama and a book on Tarjamat Al Tassawof (Translating Mysticism).
His current research project deals with « Celluloid Veil and Camera revelation », where he pursues the exploration of the aesthetics of the veil in modern culture.
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