Climate activist and writer JANE ROGERS introduces her new collection, Fire-ready, and examines the connection between life and fiction
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The long reach of the medieval Islamic workforce
WILL PODMORE is enthralled by the convincing case that guilds of Islamic craftsmen were responsible for the European gothic style
EVOLUTION OF GOTHIC FROM ISLAMIC: Arches of the former mosque, the Cordoba Mezquita, in traditional Islamic style and completed in 971, are incorporated into the Gothic style of the transept of the Main Chapel (1523)
[Daderot/CC]
ELEANOR DOBSON reflects on a stark visual record of the violent desecration of Tutankhamun’s mummified remains
RUTH AYLETT appreciates the rich blend of poetry and music that accompanied the launch of the Morning Star’s anthology of poetry, Who We Are
WANJA KIMANI explores the many bonds of community experience expressed in in the bold and colourful imagery of a new mural
New releases from Keeley, Lucinda Williams and Ye Vagabonds
JAN WOOLF ponders the works and contested reputation of the West German sculptor and provocateur, who believed that everybody is potentially an artist
Islamesque: the forgotten craftsmen who built Europe’s medieval monuments
Diana Darke, Hurst, £25
THIS is a wonderful book, fully and colourfully illustrated. Diana Darke is an Arabist and cultural expert who has lived and worked in the Middle East for over 30 years. She describes beautifully hundreds of cathedrals, churches, monasteries, palaces and castles.
She challenges the conventional wisdom that only Rome could be the source of Christian architecture. The accepted idea is that the “Romanesque” style simply emerged between 1000 and 1250 across the whole of Europe, making it the first pan-European architectural style since Imperial Roman.
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