The BBC has issued a "no questions asked" appeal to staff in an attempt to recover hundreds of valuable works of art missing from its offices across the UK. The corporation is offering amnesty to anyone returning any of the pictures and sculptures - believed to be adorning the homes of current and former employees. An original oil painting that hung above the fireplace of founder John Reith's Broadcasting House office in the 1930s and a collection of abstract stone sculptures carved for the millennium are among those on the missing list. Art expert Emily Cruz has been hired to create a database of all the pieces supposed to be in the BBC's possession as it prepares for major building work in London and Scotland. She told staff: "No doubt many paintings and artefacts have found their way into people's homes for the good reason that there was nowhere else for them to go when offices were refurbished. "Such works may be an important part of the BBC heritage and we would like to know where they are." Jane Macfarlane, of BBC Property, added: "It is important that we know what we have so we can use it to brighten our corridors, public spaces and offices.
"We are keen to display pictures and sculpture appropriately in new and old buildings alike."
Catholics Slam Napa Art Exhibit
By JOHN M. GLIONNA
A national Roman Catholic group is protesting an exhibit at Copia, the Napa Valley's heralded new food, wine and arts museum, that includes figurines of the pope and several nuns defecating. Activists say the work by Spanish artist Antoni Miralda has no place in a museum funded in part by tax dollars, including money from Catholics. The exhibit, titled "Active Ingredients," also displays miniature figures of Santa Claus and Fidel Castro (news - web sites) in similar poses. "Catholics in the state of California are paying to have their religion depicted in a way that's offensive," said Patrick Scully, a spokesman for the Catholic League of Religious and Civil Rights. "This exhibit is insulting. It's gratuitous. It's unnecessary." Scully said that scores of the New York-based group's 350,000 members nationwide who had seen or read about the exhibit had called to complain. This week, leaders sent a letter to museum officials, who responded with an e-mail defending the depictions. "These figurines symbolize the cycle of eating and fertilization of the earth, which is a requisite for future existence," wrote Copia Executive Director Peggy Loar, according to a news release circulated Friday by the Catholic group
full story:
http://www.latimes.com/news/yahoo/la-000001083jan05.story?coll=la%2Dnewsaol%2Dheadlines
British protect Leonardo from Italian restorers
By James Morrison 06 January 2002
A group of British-based art-lovers is today celebrating an unprecedented victory in its battle to prevent Italian experts restoring a fragile unfinished painting by Leonardo da Vinci. Curators at the world-famous Uffizi gallery in Florence have abandoned controversial plans to reconstruct The Adoration of the Magi after laboratory tests proved that the work was not necessary to save it. Their decision follows months of legal threats and campaigning by ArtWatch UK, which feared that the very act of restoration could distort or destroy the incomplete masterpiece. It was at the charity's insistence that the scientific tests were carried out. Greeting the news last night, Professor James Beck, the president of ArtWatch International, who gave his backing to the British-led protest, said: "ArtWatch sought legal advice about these plans right at the start, and has been campaigning ever since the decision was announced. Without our efforts, I'm sure the tests would not have taken place, and to win a victory of this kind is, I think, unprecedented. "Our main concern was that the painting, which only ever made it to sketch form, was so fragile that any attempt to restore it could cause untold damage to it. But we were also concerned that there might be a temptation to 'repaint' bits that were slightly altered during the restoration process, thus changing the look of what was intended. "I personally wrote to the gallery superintendent last summer, and he said: 'We're going to do tests, and if they show that we shouldn't do it, we'll put it back on the wall.' We are delighted that he has kept to his word." The Adoration of the Magi, which depicts the Epiphany, the Christian festival that is being celebrated today, is judged to be one of the most priceless surviving Renaissance pictures in the world. Abandoned unfinished in 1482, all that remains of it is a monochrome sketch flecked with thin, wash-like sepia tints. The aim of the restoration had been to fortify the piece, while cleaning its darkened surface to make the image easier to see. http://news.independent.co.uk/
Greece embarks on hunt for lost Bactrian treasure
This graceful figure of a griffin on a chalcedony seal is part of the 20,000-piece 'Bactrian Treasure' excavated from Tillya Tepe in northern Afghanistan by Greek-Soviet archaeologist Victor Sarianidi. Athens will send a team to Kabul to see what is left of the hoard. Working on the hope that an ancient golden hoard found in Afghanistan by Greek-Soviet archaeologist Victor Sarianidi 24 years ago may have survived in Kabul, a team of Greek archaeologists under the "Bactrian treasure" excavator will soon visit Afghanistan to investigate, the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. During a meeting in Athens chaired by Culture Minister Evangelos Venizelos, it was decided to send a mission "to look into the condition of the Bactrian treasure that was kept in Kabul," a ministry statement said. The team, which will include Culture Ministry archaeologists, will leave for Afghanistan "immediately once that becomes possible." The project will cooperate with UNESCO and the Afghan government. It is unclear what remains of the hoard excavated by Sarianidi - Sariyiannidis in Greek - from the Tillya Tepe (the Golden Mound) royal grave complex in northern Afghanistan in 1978. The 20,000 golden objects - ornaments, coins and figurines tentatively dated to 100 BC - were last heard to have been in an underground, steel-doored vault beneath the presidential palace in Kabul. That was in 1991. Since then, the Tillya Tepe finds have been wrapped in rumor, acquiring a quasi-legendary status. Recent reports agreed that the hoard was once in the vault. In one of his last interviews before being assassinated this year, Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massod confirmed this but said the Taleban - who looted and destroyed most of the Kabul Museum's exhibits - had gained entry. If so, they may have melted down or smuggled out the Bactrian treasure. The ancient Greek kingdom of Bactria was founded by Alexander after his conquest of the area in 328 BC. It became part of the Kushan empire 200 years later.
photo at: http://www.ekathimerini.com/news/content.asp?aid=113509
Afghanistan's forgotten heritage
Raana Haider
Kandahar found itself a place on the world's map as early as 550 BC. It was a part of the Achaemenian Empire under Cyrus the Great and his successors. In its greatest extent, the Achaemenian Empire stretched from present-day Libya to the Indus Valley and to Turkey to the west. There is some evidence of a remarkable culture that thrived around 2000 to 1900 BC in the northern plain around the present-day town of Balkh. Onsori, an eleventh century poet from Balkh composed a romantic poem in Farsi. It was titled 'The Red Buddha and the White Buddha' -- the names given to the two giant Buddhas in the Bamiyan province, writes Raana Haider. "Kabul is a most bustling and populous city. Such is the noise in the afternoon, that in the streets one cannot make an attendant hear...The great bazaar is an elegant arcade, nearly 600 feet long and 30 broad... There are few such bazaars in the East and one wonders at the silks, cloths and goods which are arranged under its piazzas. ... In May one may purchase the grapes, pears, apples, quinces and even melons of the bygone season, then 10 months old... Kabul is famed for its kababs or cooked meats... Few cook at home." -Caravan Journeys and Wanderings in Persia, Afghanistan, Turistan and Baloochistan by J P Ferrier, 1857. Amagnificent illuminated manuscript was made in Herat in 1494-1495. It is part of the Khamseh of Nizami. It is to be found at the British library in London and is ranked as one of "the most perfect pages of Persian illumination since it balances complexity with clarity" notes Brend in 'Islamic Art'. Another masterpiece miniature also painted in Hera and dated 1495 depict Sufis discoursing in a garden. It is taken from the Khamsa of Mir Ali Shir Navali. Today, it is to be found at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. At an auction in Paris by Drouot Richelieu in 1998 of the personal Ottoman art collection of a grandson of Sultan Abdulhamid II (1876-1909), one of the outstanding items out of a collection worthy of the finest museum was a "very rare Persian manuscript, 297 folios, unedited, illustrated with 33 miniatures. A precious document, splendid for its content and for the originality of the illustrations" states the auction catalogue. The 'Chronicles Tawarikh of Tabari' dates from the late fifteenth century probably from Herat in the Khorasan province of present day Iran. This masterpiece was leather-bound (cover) in the Ottoman style of the sixteenth century. Its estimate for sale at the auction was $20,000 to $25,000. It must have fetched a price well beyond the conservative estimate. At the same auction, a ceramic water pitcher turquoise blue transparency from Bamiyan and dated the eleventh century was estimated between $3500 to $5000. A magnificent masterpiece of a 'Rug with Overall Pattern' made in Afghanistan in the sixteenth century is feature in 'Islamic Art and Patronage: Treasures from Kuwait'. "Identified with the city of Heart, a famous centre of artistic activities. Under the Timurids, Herat became renowned for the high quality and intricate floral designs of its rugs during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries." The Mongol Khan Tamerlane (1370-1405) born near Samarkhand wanted to reconstitute the empire of his forefather Genghis Khan (1167-1227) the founder of the Mongol Empire. Tamerlane was a fifth-generation descendant of Genghis Khan. By the age of 25, Tamerlane had already conquered Iran, Iraq, Armenia, the Caucasus, a part of Syria and the Asia Minor. He founded the Timurid dynasty. While Mongols are traditionally known as destroyers who ravaged much of the cultivated land and savaged the captured population, contrary to popular misconception, latter day Mongols were significant patrons of the arts. Many Mongols converted to Islam including the Ilkhanid rulers of Persia at the end of the thirteenth century. The Ilkhanid ruler Oljaitu established at Soltaniyieh near Qazvin and en route to Tabriz (present-day Iran) his new capital and endowed it with many mosques and monuments including the still-standing massive mausoleum at Soltaniyieh. As pointed out by Arthur Goldschmidt Jr in 'A Concise History of the Middle East' "The Mongol era proved the old adage that captive Persia always subdues its conquerors." In order to expand and beautify his new capital at Samarkhand, Tamerlane recruited artisans from all the cities he had conquered in Iran and Syria. The Mongols established a Pax Mongolica that stretched from China to Poland. "One branch of the Timurids made itself master of Northern India and founded the great Mughal empire, from being uncouth nomad warriros, they transformed themselves into protectors and promoters of one of the most refined and resplendent civilizations that has ever existed" is another elaboration offered by the Florence-born Swiss Islamic art scholar Titus Burckhardt in 'Art and Islam: Language and Meaning'. Burckhardt further informs us that "A European traveller of the sixteenth century, who visited Samarqand, the then Timurid capital, has described the extraordinary scenes when Turco-Mongol chieftains were having immense mosques and universities erected while themselves living in their tents set up in the midst of gardens. The buildings described are largely still extant; with their facings in mosaics and ceramic tiles they are among the most beautiful monuments of Islam." Tamerlane's grandson Baysunghur established the most famous fifteenth century atelier in Herat. A progress report now preserved at the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul is a record of projects under the head of the atelier Jafar Tabrizi (active 1412-1431). The report addressed to Baysunghur mentions twenty-two projects that are underway -- manuscript designs, architectural works, tents and other objects -- and includes the names of twenty-three artists --- painters, illuminators, calligraphers, binders, rules, and chest makers -- who worked individually or in teams. The leading role that Baysunghur played in the domain of arts is recognized in a contemporary doctoral dissertation (Harvard University, 1985) by Thomas W Lentz titled 'Painting at Herat under Baysunghur ibn Shahrukh'. Another Timurid descendant usayn Bayqara (died 1506) continued the royal patronage of arts in Herat -- once destroyed by Genghis Khan in 1220. Herat remained a major cultural metropolis. Herat artisans were to be found in Shiraz, Tabriz (Iran) and throughout the Ottoman Empire. Herat once again attracted cultural wizards of the region -- the Persian poet Nour Eddin Djami, the Herat-born poet Mir Alisher Noavoi and the master Persian Miniaturist painter and calligrapher Behzad. Djami was born in Djam, Afghanistan and died in Herat. "His mastery of the Persian language and the riches of his style made him the last of a line of great Persian poets in the tradition of Saadi, Nezami and Hafez," declares Yves Thoraval in 'Dictionnaire de Civilisation Musulmane'. One of the cultural icons of Central Asia, Navoi was a master of ghazal (love poems) and a vizir (minister) of Husayn Bayqara. Behzad's brilliant miniature drawings enriched the manuscripts of 'Boustan' and 'Golestan' of Saadi and the 'Khamseh of Nizami'. Herat is the origin of the Safavid dynasty in Persia. The Safavids in the sixteenth century under Shah Abbas established the most famous and complete assemblage of buildings in Esfahan. With the construction of this novel grandiose urban complex, Esfahan was known in its day as 'Esfahan-e-Nesf-e-Jahan' (Esfahan is half the world). Shah Abbas's father Tahmasp was a governor of Herat. Tahmasp then moved his capital to Qazvin (modern-day Iran) in 1548. Shah Abbas established his capital in Esfahan in the Persian heartland in 1596. An eloquent summary of the presence of Islamic art in global artistic heritage is offered in 'Islamic Art and Patronage: Treasures from Kuwait', a superb publication on one of the finest collections of Islamic art that privately exists. Sheikh Nasir Sabah and his wife Sheikha Hussah Sabah of the royal family of Kuwait have formed this rare collection. "The eloquence of Islamic art -- its ability to 'speak' to the observer in a purely visual language -- is therefore considerably wider in scope than European art with its concentration on narrative and the human form and focus on figural painting and sculpture. Long before European artists developed to a high degree the notion of beauty inherent in abstraction, mathematical order, visual and physical texture, and colour, these aspects of artistic imagination were central to the production and patronage of art in Islamic lands. What is relegated to the subsidiary realm of 'decorative arts' in the European imagination and academic curriculum is therefore a major focus of artistic energy in the Islamic world." Herat has always held its own regarding its strategic importance. J P Ferrier recorded in his writings in 1856: "The position of Herat on the line of advance from Persia and Toorkistan, towards the Indus, has made its possession essential to the success of any invasion of India from that quarter and we accordingly find that from the time of Darius to the present, its occupation has been a prelude to any attempts of the kind by successive conquerors...Herat is at the present time the asylum of all the fallen greatness of past centuries. Here is to be seen the descendants of Ghengis Khan, of Tamerlane and Nadir Shah... There is not a position of more importance in a strategically and commercial point of view and the fertility of the soil is great... The great roads from all the principal countries of Asia meet. Persian, Turkestan, Afghanistan, India and Sistan merchants gathered here." Kandahar found itself a place on the world's map as early as 550 BC. It was a part of the Achaemenian Empire under Cyrus the Great and his successors. In its greatest extent, the Achaemenian Empire stretched from present-day Libya to the Indus Valley and to Turkey to the west. There is some evidence of a remarkable culture that thrived around 2000 to 1900 BC in the northern plain around the present-day town of Balkh. Onsori, an eleventh century poet from Balkh composed a romantic poem in Farsi. It was titled 'The Red Buddha and the White Buddha' -- the names given to the two giant Buddhas in the Bamiyan province. The city of Balkh can claim a mosque dating to the tenth century whose stout brick columns support rectangular capitals and arcades rich with elaborately carved stucco work. Balkh was part of the Abbasid empire (750-940) whose capital was Baghdad. The upper echelons of the Abbasid administration, particularly during the reign of Harun-ur-Rashid, were dominated by the Barmecides who were of Persian origin from the city of Balkh. Some three generations of Barmecides served the empire as bursars, tax collectors, provincial governors, military commanders, tutors and ministers. The father of Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi, the Sufi poet and dervish emigrated from Balkh and settled in Konya (modern-day Turkey). Interestingly, Bernard Lewis points out in 'The World of Islam' "...although it is true that not all Islamic mystics were Persians, it is also true that neither the Arabs, the Turks nor Indian Muslims produced mystics of the stature of the Persians Sanai, Nizami, Jalaluddin Rumi, al-Ghazali, Farid ad-Din Attar and Hafiz." Lewis argues that Shiism led naturally to mysticism and it was Persia that produced the most eminent of all Islamic mystical writers. Balkh was once known as the Oumme el Belad (Mother of All Cities). According to a Chinese visitor in 663 AD, Balkh had three of the most beautiful buildings in the world. Today, all traces of its glorious origins are lost in the obscurity of ages. A once glorious city in Afghanistan, Furrah, whose most ancient past was built even before Alexander's expeditions, is by mid-nineteenth century a distant memory. "Furrah is one example of the difficulty of stating anything certain about the geography of Central Asia; a place may today be the centre of a flourishing population, and in four-and-twenty hours a desert. The Afghans have become so used to sudden and forced displacements that they never attach themselves to the soil. Their tent is their country......nothing there is certain; nothing is durable; everything is liable to impromptu changes -- men as well as things," observed Ferrier. Coming across this observation, I was reminded of the regional dictum: 'My brother and I against our cousin. My cousin and I against a stranger.' In a 1994 edition of 'Middle East', Lonely Planet's section on Afghanistan states that it was not possible to visit the Kabul citadel known as Bala Hissar since it was used by the military. It was possible, however, "to walk the entire length of the often crumbling walls....It took about five hours to walk the full length of the walls." In a highly informative article 'Afghanistan, the Daunting Land: Political and Cultural Complexities Make a Mission Harder', Souren Melikian, art and culture columnist in 'The International Herald Tribune' has referred to the current status of the ancient cities in Afghanistan. "Herat, the great Persian metropolis wrested from Iran in the mid-19th century with British backing....Ghazni, 120 kilometres (75 miles) southwest of Kabul. This city part- Persian and part-Pashto speaking, was once the great capital of the eastern Iranian world under the sultans of the Ghaznavid dynasty in the 11th and 12th centuries. It is the hometown of a famous 12th century Persian poet, the Sufi mystic Sanai....Kabul itself, which had been undergoing an intellectual renaissance in the early 1970s, is now devastated -- its fine archaeological museum a half-destroyed empty shell....Kabul is one of the oldest Persian- speaking cities in the world...." At the home of friends in Tehran, I was fascinated by the collection of framed etchings of bazaars, fortresses, landscape, palaces and people in Afghanistan -- dated eighteenth and nineteenth centuries -- hanging on the walls. Observing my interest, our host showed me a massive leather-bound volume -- highly valuable and obviously much cherished -- of etchings of Afghanistan in the nineteenth century by a British army officer serving in Afghanistan. Our host had bought this rare book at a Christie's auction in London. A current (2001) exhibition in Barcelona, Spain reveals the ancient artistic creativity of Afghanistan dating back thousands of years. 'Afghanistan: A History of Millennia' unveils three thousand years of Afghan art and archaeology with 230 objects on display, as well as films, photographs, books and music. The exhibition contains pieces on loan from private collectors and museums in Russia, the United States, Germany and France. The objects on display reflect Hindu, Greek, Roman and Chinese influences. Materials such as wood, ivory, clay, silver, bronze and glass were employed to make busts of Buddhist saints, ornate human and animal figurines, arrow heads, ink wells, cooking utensils and jewellery pieces including foot long silver bracelets. Souren Melikian in another article 'Painting the Portrait of a Mysterious Culture' in the 'International Herald Tribune', referring to the exhibition on Afghanistan's cultural heritage in Barcelona and the 'Herat Bucket' in particular, advises "it alone justifies a visit". The 'Herat Bucket' is on loan from the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. The exhibition had been conceived following the destruction of the two colossal sculptures of the Buddha carved into the mountain-side of the Bamiyan valley, dating from the third and fifth centuries by the Taliban government in early 2001. Spanish organisers "wanted to offer an alternative view of the Central Asian nation." The exhibition moves to the Musee Guimet (museum of Asian art) in Paris in early 2002. Another current artistic offering comes from the internationally renowned Iranian film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf. His 'Journey to Kandahar' documents the life of an Afghani girl living in Canada who returns to Afghanistan to assist her sister who has threatened suicide. The film, released in early 2001, has been widely acclaimed, particularly in Europe. Makhmalbaf has captured the trauma and tears of this war-torn afflicted nation. Following his filming of 'Journey to Kandahar', Makhmalbaf wrote a 32-page economic, political and historical analyses of Afghanistan. He titled the essay 'The Buddha Was Not Demolished In Afghanistan: He Collapsed Out of Shame.' It is a deeply poignant indictment of man's inhumanity and callousness. One of the great Buddhist centres of the region, Bamiyan could boast 'more than 10 monasteries and more than 1000 priests' according to a Chinese priest who visited Bamiyan in 632 AD. Shar- I-Gholgola is the ruined city in the Bamiyan valley -- the name meaning 'city of sighs'; the sighs being those of the inhabitants massacred by Genghis Khan. Today, sadly much of the global knowledge and image of Afghanistan has been reduced to -- a $1 million missile pounding a $10 tent.
Raana Haider a writer on global cultural heritage is the wife of the Ambassador of Bangladesh to Iran. http://www.dailystarnews.com/200201/05/n2010509.htm#BODY2