Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
No photograph can do them justice.
(and “serious” attempts to do so would require equipment that very few people possess)
However, the frescoes which adorn this mosque’s domes are guaranteed to amaze and delight almost anyone who looks up at them.
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The featured image is a wide-angle (24 mm) shot of one of several such niches in Wazir Khan mosque’s prayer hall; each sits under one of its domes.
They are exquisitely and elaborately decorated, as is even more evident in the closer views, below.
The musical bonus takes us back to a time when US governments would send on tour to a predominantly Muslim nation some of the greatest American musicians…and then – upon their return to the USA – broadcast to a nationwide television audience those musicians’ admiring response to Islamic art and architecture.
(not coincidentally, the style of the decorative art that you are now looking at is, essentially, “Persian”)
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The courtyard is flanked on four sides by 32 khanas, or small study cloisters for religious scholars.
Above quotation is from the Wikipedia entry; it tells the history of Wazir Khan mosque’s 17th century CE construction, its deterioration through the 19th & 20th centuries, and its (ongoing) 21st century restoration. It includes many photos.
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This and the next chapter illustrate just how meticulous has been the restoration of the courtyard walls’ brickwork, and of the ornamental/decorative features on their inner side.
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Stokes Hill provides many different views – all, splendid – in literally every direction.
When rapidly moving clouds scatter across an otherwise intensely-blue winter’s sky, even someone who looked in only one direction would still enjoy a constantly-changing vista.
This is most spectacularly true during daylight’s first or final two hours.
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Arguably, India’s Taj Mahal is the most world’s most sublime building.
However, Agra is not the global hotspot for prime examples of Mughal architecture and its decoration.
Lahore – Pakistan’s second largest city – has the largest number of bona fide “jaw-dropping” Mughal constructions.
(I think Lahore is also a much more generally-rewarding/likeable destination than is Agra)
The last Mughal mosque – the world’s largest mosque, when constructed in 1671-73 – is in Lahore.
Lahore’s Old City is much less frenetic than Old Delhi, but the former is much the richer, architecturally.
Agra’s Red Fort is stupendous, but Lahore Fort is even more so.
Above, you are looking at merely a small section of Lahore Fort’s picture wall.
The world’s biggest such “mural” occupies circa 6,600 square metres of the fort’s exterior.
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“Plane Henge” is the signature “permanent exhibit” in what at least one writer has described as “the world’s largest art gallery”.
Mutonia Sculpture Park sits beside the Oodnadatta Track, less than one hour’s drive west from Marree.
If you were overhead, in a functional aircraft, Lake Eyre South would also be within your field of view.
The “park” includes the ruins of the Alberrie Creek Siding, on what once was “The Ghan” railway line.
Arguably, Mutonia strains to near or beyond breaking point any reasonable definition of “art gallery” or “park”.
Inarguably, its sheer unlikeliness leaves a lasting impression on most visitors.
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The pictured art object sits outside the front door of The Prairie Hotel, which is surely Australia’s most wonderfully-unlikely – and downright wonderful – outback pub
Be sure to read the “artist’s statement”.
The hotel pretty much is the hamlet of Parachilna, which a colourful signboard proclaims THE EDIACARA CAPITAL OF THE WORLD, where fossils rock!
That declaration is no idle boast.
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Australians’ 2022 views on taxation – and on taxation “reform” – are “informed” by a confusing array of truths, lies, twaddle, insight, credulity, chicanery, chutzpah, self-interested opportunism (sometimes naked, sometimes disguised) , rank hypocrisy, timidity, virtue-signalling, obfuscation, indifference, compassion, cruelty, ignorance, knowledge, and honest uncertainty.
The featured image is (Jon) Kudlelka’s cartoon for the 08 October 2022 edition of The Saturday Paper
Comments closedYou may or may not “know much about art”, and your “knowledge” may or may not have any bearing on whether you like this…
The sequel to this post will reveal the identity of the artist and the medium s/he deployed.
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