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Blair, Sheila and McCausland, Shane (2023) 'Visual Sources.' In: Biran, Michal and Kim, Hodong, (eds.), Cambridge History of the Mongol Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1349-1398.

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Abstract

An integrated essay, co-authored with Sheila Blair, on visual sources for all the regions of the Mongol empire. This chapter provides an overview of the copious material production that occurred during the centuries when the Mongols dominated much of Asia. Co-authored, the essay offers a fully integrated study that focuses on common themes rather than regional differences. It begins by assessing the sources available for study in order to underscore some of the problems in using them. It then shows that the process of commodity and exchange across the Mongol domains resulted in a shared material culture and in the emergence of a new visual language marked by three features: an interest in perspective and the opening up of space, the cultivation of monumental size in which importance was demonstrated through scale, and a concern for allover surface patterning, often with raised, pierced, or multilevel carving.

Item Type: Book Chapters
Keywords: Yuan, Ilkhanate, cloth-of-gold, printing, blue-and-white porcelains, Sufis, “Little Cities of God”, bughtaq, paiza, handscrolls, lusterware, women
SOAS Departments & Centres: Legacy Departments > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Department of History of Art and Archaeology
ISBN: 9781316337424
Copyright Statement: This is the version of the chapter accepted for publication in Biran, Michal and Kim, Hodong, (eds.), Cambridge History of the Mongol Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1349-1398 (2023). Re-use is subject to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
DOI (Digital Object Identifier): https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316337424.045
Date Deposited: 17 Apr 2015 09:27
URI: https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/id/eprint/19762

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