\ different kind of artistic glass is exemplified in the mosque lamp: of enameled and painted glass. It is true that there is as great quantity of exquisite glass. both white and colored. show ing in Persia; Syria and Egypt still carried on in the Nliddle Ages the old Egyptian and Phrenician industry, with exquisite understanding of forms and t0114,, flIrtliShillg models to Venice; hut it is in the mosque lamps that the glass-workers cer tainly enter the domain of fine art. Vivre the colors are enameled on a gilt ground and the de signs are similar to those of metal work, with greater proniillonCe given to inscriptions; cobalt, red. pale green, and white are the principal enamels and the decoration is in bands with medallions. The most beautiful examples are works of the fourteenth century from the mosques of Cairo. The mellow light shining through the enamels and glass of these suspended lamps was of an exquisite effect.
It.huMINATIO OF The aversion to the representation of the human figure hin dered the development of the art of illumination —n branch of art not cultivated extensively until the later Middle Ages. it is true that fig ured compositions were not unknown either to the Egyptian or the Syrian artists, but it was the Persian sellout, under Tatar and „Mongol in Unences, which first boldly attempted scenes of daily life and of history. There are many mann seripts of the Koran belonging to the other schools, whose first and last pages are a mass of geometrie and floral ornament. The finest col leetion of Egyptian manuscripts, executed main ly for the sultans of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, is that of the Cairo :Museum rescued from the mosques. such as those of Sultans Ka halm. Shahan, and Barkuk. Sometimes the flow ers, arabesques, and polygons are in colors on a gold ground. sometimes in gold on a ground of plain blue or red or of shaded and grouped colors. The finest of these illuminated pages surpass any thing done by Christian artists in richness, in exquisite coloring, and in fineness of execution. They are executed not on vellum, but on fine Egyptian cream-colored or reddish paper. The Syrian and Persian schools avoided the geo metric ornamentation, and their floral designs were freer anti more naturalistic. The Persian fondness for legend and poetry shows itself in the rich illumination of poems and stories which occasion for charming genre scenes and vi gnettes. and the artist's fancy sprinkled animals and birds in riotous confusion in a background of beautiful garden scenes.
It is in these figured illuminations alone that we van study the style of the fresco-painters of 'Mohammedanism. whose works have disappeared.
It is plain from native writers that the caliphs of Bagdad, the rulers of Egypt and Spain. at dig fervid tint's lavishly patronized figure painters and that such works were not confined to the Persian school. It is interesting to note the similarity between Persian and Chinese painted design and to make the :Mongols the intermedia ries between two schools. The primitive eon eeption of composition and figure and the awk ward conventionalities make the Persian school, though successful in coloring, less successful in its sphere than the purely decorative Egyptian. The most famous Persian illuminators helong to the sixt 1.ent h century, such as Fahrizi. Jehangir, Bukhari, and Bolizada. The latter's works are masterly in composition and correspond to the Italian Oiottesque masters. The last great mas ter was Mari, a naluralist from India.
Tnxrn r: FAnntes. The Far East had always hem] famous for its arti:tie stuffs, embroideries, tapestries. rugs. It was as to the arts of Persia and Babylon that the Mohammedans de veloped this branch, though Bagdad, Damascus, Cairo. and Cordova all took part and the tribes and villages rivaled with the large cities. Noth ing became Inure characteristic of the East, noth ing influences] the West more strongly, through constant importation and the contact of the Crusaders. The haute-lisse tapestry, after a method long lost in Europe, was in current use. The same difference finally appeared in the de signs here as in other branches: geoinetrieal and set patterns being more common in Egypt ; free floral designs being used in Persia. The few known Persian rugs of as early a period as the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries are now valued at many thousand dollars ($1(1.000 to $40,000), and a study of their design shows an almost •incalculable variety of native flowers nat uralistically reproduced. The Syrian school had much in common with the Byzantine and, as usual, occupied a Middle position, with medal lions in a stiff floral ground containing heraldic animals or birds. There were in every Moham medan country royal manufaetories whose prod ucts were entirely reserved for the Court and sovereign; the standards. baldachins, tents, . royal robes, hangings. housings. and rugs were all of a magnificence unknown to the ruder \Vest and unsurpassed at any time. The known speci mens date no earlier than the eleventh century and the art decayed before the sixteenth century.