Desert and Garden in the Modern Art
The Arabian proverb says: "The Desert is a garden of Allah from which the Lord of the faithful removed all redundant human and animal life so as to have on the earth at least one place where he could walk lonely".
"Everything can become clear in comparison with the opposite". Rumi.
The desert and garden - two images, two "poles" of the East where lived and wandered the followers of Moses, Christ and Mukhammad. This area includes lands of Asia Minor, Arabian Peninsula, Africa and, connected by historical fate with Russia, territories of Central Asia. The desert and garden - as if two extreme points, between which lays a variety of the life in the East. They not just determine a way of life of those or these peoples, but like many other phenomena of the reality, obtain essence and value going out geographical or domestic concepts, express philosophical, religious, aesthetic ideas and become metaphors, allegories and symbols.
We meet their pictures in...