Spirituality, Secularism, and Modernist Visions in West Asian Art in the Early Independence Period
n the decades when nations were being remade, so too were the meanings of art. Between spiritual inheritance and secular modernity, West Asian artists forged new vocabularies of form and thought. From the Baghdad Group to the phenomenon of horoufiya, this lesson traces how calligraphy, abstraction, and political vision converged in a decolonial search for belonging and self-definition.
This lesson examines artistic production in West Asia in the decades of state formation, both in parallel with and following independence from European colonial rule, when the rise of pan-Arab and socialist ideologies reshaped cultural life across the region. In this shifting context, artists negotiated the tension between spiritual legacies, secular modernisms, and the search for cultural autonomy, situating their work at the crossroads of local identity and global avant-garde currents. The lesson examines the phenomenon of horoufiya and how it differed from modern calligraphy, highlighting figures such as Madiha Omar, Hashim al-Khattat, and Jumana El-Husseini, who transformed the Arabic script into a site of aesthetic and spiritual innovation. It also considers the weaving between figuration to abstraction in the work of Shakir Hassan Al Said, Baya Mahieddine, Milad al-Shayeb, Elias Zayat, and Kamal Boullata, where formal experimentation reflected broader debates on identity, memory, and modernization. Attention is also given to the Bagdad Modern Art Group and the concept of istilham al-turath, understood as the reactivation of heritage as a source of inspiration and innovation.
February 7, 2026 - from 3 PM to 5 PM CET.
