The Philosophical Aesthetic Dimension of the Artistic Character in the Umayyad Period
This research seeks to explore the philosophical aesthetic dimension of artistic achievements in the Umayyad period (661-750 CE), stemming from a central problem: How did the Islamic artistic identity form through the dialectic of convergence with the arts of the region’s peoples while respecting Islamic values? The research concludes that Umayyad art was not merely a borrowing or imitation of Byzantine and Sasanian arts, but rather a conscious process of selection, in which Umayyad artists reformulated borrowed elements according to the framework of Islamic values. This was manifested in a clear distinction between religious and civil architecture: in religious architecture (the Dome of the Rock and the Umayyad Mosque), abstraction, transcendence (tanzih), and avoidance of human representation prevailed, while in civil architecture (Qusayr ‘Amra, Khirbat al-Mafjar, Qasr al-Mushatta, Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi), expressions varied between explicit luxury and harsh defensive beauty. The research also adopted the “Theory of Disabling Direct Signification and Opening the Field of Interpretation” in analyzing frescoes and sculptures, highlighting how Umayyad artists made their images semantically silent and open to multiple interpretations. The research concludes that what some Orientalists described as “imitation” or “incapacity” is, in reality, a different aesthetic consciousness that established a unitive aesthetics combining the assimilation of previous artistic heritage with the expression of the spirit of the new Islamic faith.