Bibliogr. Index

Introduction Arab Romantics : an awakening of the storm Colonial Syria : finding life within culture Popular politics : Adham Ismail and the aesthetics of revival National excavation : Fatih al-Moudarres and the unholy image Conclusion

"Beautiful Agitation: Modern Painting and Politics in Syria is a study of radical painting practices in the contested territory of Syria, 1900 to 1965 (the decades prior to the Ba'th Party's stranglehold on the country). Taking artists Kahlil Gibran, Adham Ismail, and Fateh al-Moudarres as protagonists, it details Syrian efforts to link art--sketches, paintings, and the occasional poem--to a vitalist substrate of sustaining, transhuman life. Theirs is a modernist practice in the Middle East that not only draws on kindred examples from beyond the limits of singular nation-states, but also aims to agitate against state authority altogether"--