Fantastic fauna : decorative animals in Moslem ceramics

to be elucidated, much revised. Where authorities hesitate, "amateurs may well abstain, and merely contemplate without aspiring to solve the many interesting questions raised by even a cursory study of the subject. Whence came the first inspiration for these beautiful portrayals of animal life ? there is nothing else in the conventional decorations to recall or even to introduce them; they seem, if not exclusively reserved to Moslem civilisation in Egypt, at least predominantly characteristic there. Did these creatures come from the signs of the Zodiac, most ancient of Zoos? Were they copied from old Egyptian monuments, a continuation of Pharaonic tradition through the Coptic ? or is it merely the coincidence of the same fauna, in the same country, observed under much the same climatic conditions that gives to the Arabic animals something of the shape and spirit of the old Egyptian ones? The Arab, true nomad, can have brought with him no clearly defined artistic tradition... Fascinating questions these that others with more science may answer satisfactorily some day.

Many excellent books have been written on Moslem Ceramics, with wonderful photographs of some of the examples and exhaustive data, but the subject has not been treated before from the point of view of its merely decorative value. This book has no new theories to expound, no controversies to start, it is only an attempt to give continued existence and expression in these pages to the exquisite surge of life, born of artistic joy in conception and execution.

The animals have been grouped according to species, and each in turn begins with the earliest [Xth century examples to end about the XVIth century so that the gradual changes of idea and technique may be followed.