
A medieval alchemical book reveals new secrets - benbreen
http://blog.britishmuseum.org/2016/02/05/a-medieval-alchemical-book-reveals-new-secrets/
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Kinnard
Fascinating. I wonder what the perspective of someone who can trace an idea
from the earliest cultures to the present-day is and how it differs from
people who have 200-yr or 2000-year scope. Would a chemist who is also an
alchemist and speaks Egyptian, Hebrew, Greek, Coptic, Arabic, Latin, English
and Lisp be different than a chemist?

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josephjrobison
Biggest takeaway: the drawing looked like a 6th grader drew them.

Very interesting nonetheless.

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hcho
That was deliberate. Drawing was/is considered practicing idolatry in muslim
cultures. The way around it was/is to draw things in a way that they resembled
the subject the least, but still recognizable.

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daveguy
That is incorrect. Painting/drawing on 2D surfaces had not yet developed
perspective. All art, European, Chinese, Native American, Muslim had this flat
perspective. It had nothing to do with religion. These were scientists
drawing. If they knew how to draw with perspective they would have. The
renaissance is partly called that because of the leap in 2D visualization
capabilities by artists. Even when you look at Greek art in the time when they
had detailed realistic sculpture the art on 2D surfaces was all without
perspective.

Edit: regarding the religious aspect, modern Muslims still consider pictorial
representations of Muhammed as blasphemous and wouldn't produce even a 2D
caricature. However the whole "art bad!" thing you see on the news is one of
Daesh's (ISIS) twisted mutations of the religion. Not a Muslim, but that's how
I understand it.

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blacksmith_tb
Broadly correct. Differing Muslim cultures had different approaches to the
problem, we generally consider Persian miniatures to be well-painted (though
without perspective), and they typically just make a token line through the
throat of human subjects to suggest they couldn't really be like the drawing
(the prophet Muhammad is generally shown with only a glowing face without
features to avoid even coming close to the problem of poorly representing
him). Of course, it's no coincidence that visual arts in the Islamic world
took patterns (which we still call arabesques) to very high level, and also
calligraphy, as they don't have any representational worries.

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daveguy
Oh that's right! I had forgotten about the throat line. And that even when
drawing not-Muhammed there was concern that it may be seen as a depiction of
Muhammed. Thank you for the clarification.

