The Egyptian Modern Art

Egypt has been under strong western influence for more than two centuries, but it also belongs to an
Arab and Islamic cultural and religious sphere. This entails that the western ideas and phenomena
that occur are getting different shapes in Egypt than in the West. One example is the religious ban on
pictorial art, enforced in the mosques and the Qur’an. This is giving the pictorial art different terms
and history than in the West. The modern Egyptian pictorial art is a phenomenon of the 20th century.
It has been created in the encounter with Europe and European culture. There are consequently
many different, and partly antagonistic tendencies that form the basis of modern pictorial art in
Egypt, as well as in other Islamic societies.
The dichotomy between modernism and traditional values has always been present, but it has been of
different importance in different periods. Egyptian artists find themselves between many more or less
contradictory sources of influence. All of them have been engaged in different ideas of building the
modern Egyptian nation.
The object of this presentation is to show how the Egyptian history and cultural traditions is present
in contemporary art. One important factor is that Egyptian national feelings are a far more important
point of reference for Egyptian artists in comparison to western art at the present moment.
Egyptian artists often work within one of three directions:
1. historic and national themes.
2. political themes mainly related to the West's and Israel's attitudes towards different Arab states.
3. emotionally, expressive motifs.
In this presentation I will deal mainly with the first direction, the historical themes. It involves rather
great difficulties in systematising modern Egyptian art in common western terms. It could have been
adequate to use the term postmodernism, as a model of thinking and not as a style, on tendencies in
Egyptian art. It can be claimed that many Egyptian artists have rather eclectic relations to western
art; they deliberately choose very different expressions or styles in different works. This makes it
difficult and unsuitable to describe them within the 'isms' of western art. The western 'isms' are more
used as concepts of style than as ideological movements.
I

Sultan Hassan Mosque And School

General Information
Monument Number: 133
Construction Date: 757-764AH/1356-1362AD
Construction Era: The Mamluk Period
Constructor Name: El Sultan Hasan Ibn El Nasser Mohamed Ibn Qalaoun
Monument Kind: Mosque/Madrasa
Status: Preserved
Region: El-Khalifa
Address: Maydan El-Qalaa

The Mosque-Madrasa of Sultan Hasan lies in Maydan El-Qalaa. It was established by Sultan Hasan who assumed power at the age of 13 and ruled the country for 12 years. His character was very weak and his decisions were usually affected by the group of powerful Emirs including Emir Taz, Shaykhu, and Sarghatmish who were surrounding and manipulating him. The construction of the mosque completed after the murder of Sultan Hasan in 1361 who died in mysterious conditions and his body was not found.

The Building was used as a shelter for some belligerent parties through out the history of Egypt and this led to the destruction of some parts of it like what happened between the dissident Emirs and Sultan Barquq in 1391. One of the Minarets of the mosque was destroyed in 1360 killing a huge number of people under it while the other one collapsed in 1659 but it was restored in 1671.