ABSTRACT
For a century or so, at least until the Seljuq successes of the middle of the eleventh century, only Fatimid Egypt existed as a strong and purposeful force in the whole of Islam and one can appropriately wonder whether Egypt did not become for a century place to which artists and artisans came from all over and therefore a creative center with an impact throughout the dar al-Islam. In a recent general introduction to Islamic art, Professor Otto-Dorn has emphasized the following main characteristic of Fatimid art other than architecture: its surprising delight in the representation of living things which appears in woodwork from the palaces, in painting, and in the minor arts. This Fatimid feature is stylistically related by the author to the art of the early ‘Abbasids as it is known primarily through paintings found in Samarra, but then the author concludes: “At same time the parallels with Seljuq art are astonishing, a relationship which still needs investigation”.
