The Black Mirror of the Pupil of the Eye: Around the Eye that Sees and Is Seen: Ibn al-ʿArabī, Bill Viola
The present article traces the symbols of the eye (Greek: κόρη [maiden, concubine, pupil of the eye]; Latin: pūpilla; Hebrew: īshōn bath ʿāyin (‘apple of the eye’ or the ‘pupil of the eye’ [lit. ‘daughter of an eye’], i.e., the feminine divine Presence [Shĕkhīnāh]); Arabic: ʿayn; Persian: chashm) an...
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| Medienart: | Elektronisch Aufsatz |
| Sprache: | Englisch |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Veröffentlicht: |
2023
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| In: |
Religions
Jahr: 2023, Band: 14, Heft: 8 |
| weitere Schlagwörter: | B
mirror pupil of the eye
B Bill Viola B inner vision B Sufism B Ibn al-ʿArabī |
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| Zusammenfassung: | The present article traces the symbols of the eye (Greek: κόρη [maiden, concubine, pupil of the eye]; Latin: pūpilla; Hebrew: īshōn bath ʿāyin (‘apple of the eye’ or the ‘pupil of the eye’ [lit. ‘daughter of an eye’], i.e., the feminine divine Presence [Shĕkhīnāh]); Arabic: ʿayn; Persian: chashm) and the black pupil of the eye (Arabic: insān al-ʿayn; Persian: mardum-i chashm) in Sufism, both—in the context of Andalusian Sufism, specifically in Ibn al-ʿArabī’s poem entitled ‘I saw a Girl…’, in whose dark pupil or abyssal blackness (Arabic: ḥawar; Hebrew: īshōn), pleasure of the gaze (naẓar) and repository of the secret (sirr), resides the Beloved—as in the medieval Persian gnosis of the followers of al-Sahykh al-Akbar—Fakhr al-Dīn ʿIrāqī and Maḥmūd Shabistarī—, and the mystical poet Ḥāfiẓ Shīrāzī. Ibn al-ʿArabī and Shabistarī have had an explicit influence on the work of the reputed American video artist Bill Viola (Queens, New York, 1951), specifically in his two video/sound installations—He Weeps for You (1976) and I Do Not Know What It Is I Am Like (1986), in which the common image of the mirror pupil of the eye summarizes the entire ancient Neoplatonic conception of the θεωρία (contemplatio, speculatio). |
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| ISSN: | 2077-1444 |
| Enthält: | Enthalten in: Religions
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.3390/rel14080994 |