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Douglas Okasaki: Volvo Race, Gulf News (Dubai)

on January 11, 2017

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By Douglas Okasaki, Gulf News

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Alif , letters and scripts

In the same sense that the ancient Greeks have Corinthian, Doric and ionic styles, the culture of Islamic middle eastern countries have a rich history of its own, a timeline of evolution and milestones that depict a complex evolution of this art form. If music flourished in Central Europe and classical painting in Western Europe, the clues to see the art of these countries is the variety, complexity and richness of the stylistic and historical dimensions of the calligraphy. That is very much the limit of my appreciation, as my lack of knowledge set boundaries to my assessment as mere aesthetic opinion or contemplation. Actually since I mention the Greeks, the Arabic letters have a tradition of proportion studies very much like the modulor of LeCorbusier, or other systems that use analogies to the human body or geometric figures, as you can see in the image below, to the right upper side, where you see the letter alif (a) inscribed in a circle and also defined by a succession of rhombo...

Ibn Muqla canon, excerpts, plus Ahmed Rafiq Book: The Aesthetic Foundations of the Arabic Scripture at Ibn Mulaqh. Excerpts and table of contents.

Full with plenty of ellegance and harmoy, here a glimpse in the calligraphic work of Ibn Muqlah. Ibn Muqlah (886-940 CE) was an official of the Abbasid empire, a diplomatic and also an innovator in the field of the calligraphy; his writings lead a change in the way the documents were rendered in the Arab world, from kufic to naksh. Here we can appreciate a copy of his work. Below I also post excerpts of Ahmed Rafiq Book: The Aesthetic Foundations of the Arabic Scripture at Ibn Mulaqh. Excerpts and table of contents. It is an interesting book, specially when doing the connections to greco-latin traditions, for example, when comparing the proportions of letter Alif to the Vitruvian man. All these contents are in the repository of islamicmanuscripts.com , including works of Sheila Blair, Paul Delaroche, D. James and others. Here are excerpts and screenshots of a very interesting book written by Ahmed Rafiq commenting the life and work of the renowned Arab c...

The Guardian: The war against Francis (spanish)

La lectura larga La guerra contra el Papa Francisco Viernes 27 de octubre de 2017 a las 06.00 BST Última modificación el viernes 3 de noviembre de 2017 16.06 GMT https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/oct/27/the-war-against-pope-francis?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Tweet Su modestia y humildad lo han convertido en una figura popular en todo el mundo. Pero dentro de la iglesia, sus reformas han enfurecido a los conservadores y provocado una revuelta. Por Andrew Brown El Papa Francisco es uno de los hombres más odiados en el mundo de hoy. Los que más lo odian no son los ateos, los protestantes o los musulmanes, sino algunos de sus propios seguidores. Fuera de la iglesia, es muy popular como una figura de modestia y humildad casi ostentosa. Desde el momento en que el cardenal Jorge Bergoglio se convirtió en Papa en 2013, sus gestos cautivaron la imaginación del mundo: el nuevo Papa condujo un Fiat, llevó sus propios bolsos y colocó sus propios recibos en hoteles; preguntó, a los homosexu...

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