Project Overview:
A Thousand and One Nights

Introduction:

The Middle East was misunderstood long before Hollywood’s depictions of cultures and differing societies took the world by storm.

Objective:

To inspect this approach better I selected the book Thousand and One Nights as my subject matter. The goal is to analyze the earlier illustrations of this Mideast tale done by European artists and determine whether or not these illustrations accurately depict what is known of the culture and lore of the era.

Viewed by many as a region that is both mystical and barbaric, Western civilization has always tended to lean into a confusing territory where extreme beliefs that were not backed by any evidence were the go-to solution in the cross-cultural examination of a place that was ripped of its true essence with the help of an orientalist lens.

The proposed study discusses the section of The Thousand and One Nights that is set in Iran and explores how the setting at hand ought to be interpreted and consequently illustrated, alongside this discussion proposed illustrations from characters, architecture, landscapes, and objects from Thousand and One Nights in the format of an art book are submitted.

Project Overview: A Thousand and One Nights

Project Overview:
A Thousand and One Nights