Reissue of a primordial work in the history of the art of the countries of North Africa and West Asia, a major reflection on the artistic currents of the Arab world in the 20th century which responds more than ever, thirty years after its first publication, to the need to decolonize the knowledge.
In Egypt, Lebanon, and Iraq, the encounter with the upheavals that had transformed European visual arts since the early twentieth century, coinciding with the consolidation of Arab nationalisms, gave rise to radical transformations articulated around two parallel paradigms: modernity (hadatha) and authenticity (asala). Both notions became the object of sustained reinterpretation and critical re-evaluation, as demonstrated by the development of the visual arts in these three countries across the colonial and postcolonial eras.
By re-editing, translating and expanding Silvia Naef's text, with updated and coloured iconography, Zamân Books wishes to circulate these fundamental elements of a history of Arab modernities, which are still as relevant as ever.
New expanded edition of the book published in 1996 by Slatkine (Geneva).
Silvia Naef was a full professor at the Arabic Studies Section of the University of Geneva from 2006 to 2025, where she obtained her Ph.D. in 1993 with a thesis on modern art in the Arab world (published in 1996). As a postdoctoral scholar, she worked on Shia in Iraq and Lebanon and their relation to left-wing ideologie. Her researches focus on modern art, visual representations and images, as well as in gender issues in the Arab and Islamic world.
