A Semiological view of the Art of Islamic Miniatures and the Four Elements of the Universe

Abstract

Abstract

The ancients believed the world to be composed of four basic elements, Fire, Water, Air, and Earth, which did not originate from nowhere, but emerged as a component of the human mind looking beyond the physical world and exploring nature. The ancient philosophers linked these four elements to various human activities as a mediating synthesis between a fixed essence of the universe and the existence of the changing material in the universe.

Since art is a outcome of human creative activity and an interpretation of the human view of the universe and the phenomena around it, it was necessary to reflect these elements in the creative and fictional mind of art and artist. The artists of the Islamic ages were inspired by some of the beliefs of previous eras and reflected them in their various arts and creations. The art of Islamic miniatures is a miniaturized picture of the content of a manuscript or a book whose mission is to represent the idea or image in a symbolic character associated with physical and spiritual concepts and beliefs

. These drawings, by their legendary nature, provided an integrated structure for artistic elements, in which the aesthetic meanings that address the soul and the artistic meanings that address the eye within an overlapping network are presented.

The view and contemplation of a Semiological vision does not aim to dismantle the structure of Islamic miniatures only, but it reveals its meanings and changes its relation with the awareness. The artistic form overlapping philosophic appears in levels of connotations that give to this art a new strategic depth. In addition, the art of Miniature offers us a self-contained art centered on the language of the artist and the language of the universe around him.

This study attempts to explore the effect of these four elements within the Islamic system of miniature art, which was adopted by a philosophical approach that appeared in form and content in the pursuit of several concepts derived from the spirit of Islamic faith.