Episode Ten: The Experience of Beauty in Islamic Art with Dr Valerie Gonzales

HWhat is the nature and significance of beauty in Islamic theology and intellectual thought? To what extent did theological, philosophical, and mystical ideas inform the production and reception of Islamic material culture? These and other questions will be the focus of the English interview series "Beauty and Islamic Theology", a series that explores the rich and diverse relationships between theology, art, and aesthetics in the Islamic world.
In this week's conversation, Dr Bilal Badat talks to Dr Valerie Gonzales about aesthetics in Islamic art and architecture. Dr Gonzales describes what initially drew her to the study of beauty and aesthetics in Islamic art and architecture, the ways in which theological and philosophical ideas influenced material culture, and her aesthetic interpretation of the Hall of Comares at the Alhambra.
Dr Valérie Gonzalez is a Research Associate at SOAS, University of London. Her specialities specialise includes Islamic art history and aesthetics. Dr Gonzalez obtained her Ph.D. in Islamic Studies at the University of Provence Aix-Marseille, and a Master of Fine Arts from the School of Fine Arts, Marseille-Luminy. She was awarded scholarships from Kunsthistorisches Institut-Max-Planck-Institut, Florence, Trinity College, Dublin, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture (MIT), and the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.
Her published books include: Aesthetic Hybridity in Mughal Painting, 1526-1658, Ashgate 2015; Insights on Islamic Aesthetics, Visual Culture and History/Shvatanja Islamske Estetike, Visualne Kulture I Historije, 2006; Le piège de Salomon, La pensée de l'art dans le Coran, Albin Michel, 2002, and Beauty and Islam, Aesthetics of Islamic Art and Architecture IBTauris, 2001; Emaux d'al-Andalus et du Maghreb, 1994.
This interview series concludes the one-year AIWG project workshop "Beauty and Islamic Theology", a joint research program of the Centre for Islamic Theology at the Eberhard-Karls-University Tübingen and the Chair of Islamic Religious Studies at the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg.