A World of Beasts : a Thirteenth-century Illustrated Arabic Book on Animals (the Kitaab Na't Al-oHayawaan) in the Ibn Bakhtaishau' Tradition

The Kitāb Naʿt al-Ḥayawān is the earliest of a group of illustrated manuscripts dealing with the characteristics of animals and their medicinal uses. The present study considers both the confluence of textual traditions within this work and the stylistic and iconographic relationships of its illustrations, which make it a key witness to early thirteenth-century Arab painting. After a re-evaluation of previous approaches, emphasis is placed on relating image to text, on stylistic affiliations, and on the modalities of production, supported by technical analyses undertaken for the first time. In elucidating the particular context of this unique manuscript, the study contributes to our understanding of a critical period in the development of Middle Eastern painting and art. Contadini (SOAS, London U., the UK) has written a thorough and careful analysis of this superlative Abbasid manuscript (British Library, Or. 2784), comparing its text and images to a variety of related works, weighing the evidence for its possible date and patron, and discussing in detail each of the images through comparisons with similar works and analysis of their meaning. The volume, which is published in an oversized format (8.5x11.75") is lavishly illustrated with two groups of color plates; the first containing half- or full-page plates of the manuscript's images and comparative material, the second featuring a complete catalog of the manuscript's paintings, represented six to a page. A notable addition to the scholarship of Islamic manuscript painting, the volume is also significant for its analysis of Arabic medicine and the interpretation of Greek medical texts. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) "The Kitāb Na't al-Ḥayawān is the earliest of a group of illustrated manuscripts dealing with the characteristics of animals and their medicinal uses. The present study considers both the confluence of textual traditions within this work and the stylistic and iconographic relationships of its illustrations, which make it a key witness to early thirteenth-century Arab painting. After a re-evaluation of previous approaches, emphasis is placed on relating image to text, on stylistic affiliations, and on the modalities of production, supported by technical analyses undertaken for the first time. In elucidating the particular context of this unique manuscript, the study contributes to our understanding of a critical period in the development of Middle Eastern painting and art."--Publisher's website The Kit b Na t al- ayaw n is the earliest of a group of illustrated manuscripts dealing with the characteristics of animals and their medicinal uses. The present study considers both the confluence of textual traditions within this work and the stylistic and iconographic relationships of its illustrations, which make it a key witness to early thirteenth-century Arab painting. After a re-evaluation of previous approaches, emphasis is placed on relating image to text, on stylistic affiliations, and on the modalities of production, supported by technical analyses undertaken for the first time. In elucidating the particular context of this unique manuscript, the study contributes to our understanding of a critical period in the development of Middle Eastern painting and art." A study of the Kit?b Na't al-?ayaw?n (Book on the Characteristics of Animals), this book considers together text and image in this unique thirteenth-century manuscript, thereby contributing to the wider scholarship on Middle Eastern painting and art of the pre-modern period