Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
Immediately after admiring Lahore’s picture wall we went “inside” the actual wall.
This was “illegal”, but we did so as honoured guests.
Our chaperone was a senior heritage architect, involved in the ongoing excavation and restoration of Lahore Fort’s summer palace.
Above, you are looking at one of the simpler parts of its elaborate cooling system.
The outermost of the summer palace’s many chambers are literally within the cavity of the fort’s massive outer wall.
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The featured image shows one of the 116 such illustrated panels on Lahore Fort’s picture wall.
As the image below makes clear, the presence of so many resident doves/pigeons was definitely not an unwanted “intrusion”.
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Lahore Fort’s “picture wall” is one of “our” planet’s man-made wonders.
It may or may not be “the world’s biggest mural” – as is sometimes claimed – but it is certainly the largest Persian-style picture wall.
The artistic quality, variety and intricacy are breathtaking…most especially when one remembers that the picture wall comprises more than 6,600 square metres!
The not-quite-concluded 21st century “restoration” of this 17th century masterpiece has been hugely ambitious, but very well-considered…and not “overdone”.
This happened just in time; early this century the much-degraded picture wall came alarmingly close to its irreversible, nigh-total disintegration.
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The Shahi Hammam’s smaller rooms’ decorative frescoes – as illustrated in this post’s featured image – are geometric/“abstract” and very “spare”.
They are no less beautiful than the big rooms’ much more elaborate and oft-“representational” frescoes.
Contrary to widespread belief, Islam does not impose a blanket ban on “representational” visual art in general, nor on the depiction of humans, specifically.
For instance, “Persian miniature” – one of the best-loved, most influential forms of visual art – was fostered by Muslim rulers; a key feature of the genre is its depiction of (non -sainted) human beings.
That said, what you can see below is something that would never have been approved.
It is a cheeky, “improper” bit of egocentricity on the part of one anonymous artist/artisan.
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My photo shows the grandest of this monumental bathhouse’s 21 rooms.
The “cold room” was the “entry statement” – the place where public “occasions” and gatherings could occur, separate from the actual baths, their steam, their heat and their need for “privacy”.
Westerners tend to call any such building a “Turkish Bath”.
Turkey, however, never had a monopoly on public hot baths. (nor did Asia. For example, the English city of Bath is so-named after the public baths constructed by its Roman conquerors)
As tended to be true of Mughal Empire structures on the Indian subcontinent, this building’s aesthetics are somewhat eclectic, but the predominant “accent” of the Shahi Hammam is “Persian”…definitely not “Turkish”.
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The Shahi Hammam was constructed in the 1630s CE, in conjunction with the nearby Wazir Khan mosque.
Both a “royal” and a “public” bathhouse, the gloriously decorated Shahi Hammam was very much more than an “ablution block”; it was a meeting place, a social hub, and it provided a large portion of the mosque’s income.
However, the Mughal Empire soon declined and fell.
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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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