Westerners usually
think of the Archangel Gabriel in terms of Christmas cards depicting the
Annunciation, when he proclaimed to Mary that she would conceive Jesus. Well,
it turns out that he was a multicultural proclaimer, serving as God’s messenger
in Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and other faiths. The angel is mentioned several
times in the Qur’an, although there are various interpretations of his status
by scholars. However, scholars all agree that it was Gabriel (Jibril, or
Jibrail) who made the really big announcement to Muhammad that he was chosen to
be a prophet by God.
In the ninety-sixth chapter of the Qur’an (96:1-5), the
archangel Gabriel appears to Muhammad while he is in the wilderness of Hira
(near Mecca) meditating and trying to figure out his spiritual life away from
all of the evils in the world. Gabriel basically tells Muhammad that God needs
him to put forth God’s message, and to write down God’s teachings. The
archangel helped him overcome his protests that he could not read or write,
ultimately convincing Muhammad, “Read in the name of your lord and cherisher
who created…He who taught the use of pen; Taught man that which he did not
know.”
This passage, in which Muhammad is instructed to write the
Qur’an, more or less, is so interesting in light of how significant calligraphy
became in the art forms of Islamic lands. The emphasis on the written word in
the Qur’an is so strong that, by the Middle Islamic Period (ca. 750–1258),
literacy in Islamic lands was greater than in Western Europe.
So, this image of Gabriel is not simply the result of the
influence of Western European manuscripts from the Renaissance, because angels
already existed in Islamic thought. In fact, winged, supernatural beings in
human form have existed for thousands of years in the art of the Middle East.
This figure of Gabriel bears the typical stylistic traits of Safavid Iranian
court painting in the attenuated, elegant figure in a shallow landscape that
resembles the millefleur designs of French Renaissance tapestries. The wings
resemble paintings of seraphim, the angels of upper high heaven in European
paintings.
In many ways, this book is similar to the Book of the Marvels of the World (Livre des Merveilles du Monde), a French
compilation of numerous sources on similar subjects, both religious and scientific,
ca. 1460. Talk about a global village. Wonders
of Creation became very popular in Mughal India (1526–1756), where the
Safavid style of illustrating books had great influence on Mughal painting.
Correlations to Davis
programs: Experience Painting: 1;
Discovering Art History: 4.7, 7.3; Discovering Art History Digital: 4.7, 7.3; The
Visual Experience: 14.2