The Blend

Vidhi Shah

(American University in Dubai, April 2015)

Being born and brought up in Dubai, I was always fascinated by Arabic Calligraphy. Thus I was also inspired by the famous Arabic calligraphy Hassan Massoudy by his fine art work with the use of colors such as red, blue, green and brown. The reason why I decided to do a stain glass painting as this would make a quine blend of classical. Back in time when people used to make this as a decorative material for windows in mosques, churches and places.  It was a high status and a unique object to have stain glass windows; therefore only important landmarks would have them.

 The purpose of stain glass painting is that, when sunlight passes throw the painting, the artwork done on the stain glass gets reflected on the walls of the mosques.  Stain glass painting are very colorful in nature such as red, yellow, brown or green, in addition Hassan Massoudy also uses these colors in his art work. The color green symbolizes Islam, and it is used in countries where the concentration of Muslims is high.  I have depicted a quote from the Qur'an and have converted it into a design getting inspired by the Kufic calligraphy. Such painting was used and installed as windows in mosque such as The Nasir al-Molk Mosque In Iran or the Blue Mosque in Iznik. 

Personally I believe that the use of such beautiful art does not only enhance the mosques' esthetics but also helps one guide the light to heaven when the sun rise hits the glass it projects the words from the Qur'an!