Abu Dhabi – Asdaf News:
Letters of Light, the newest exhibition at the Louvre Abu Dhabi, will debut on September 13, 2023. It will include some of the first manuscripts from the three monotheistic religions. Letters of Light, a collaboration between the Bibliothèque nationale de France and France Museums, examines the historical setting in which the holy books were composed, how they were transmitted over time, the scholarly and mystical practises connected to them, and their central significance in the development of human knowledge and the arts.
Visitors will find significant and exquisite manuscripts of the Quran, Bible, and Torah, as well as items from the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Musée du Louvre in Paris, and the Louvre Abu Dhabi, among the more than 240 works of art on show. These items come from all around the world and include texts, images, graphic arts, three-dimensional artefacts, fabrics, and paintings. The exhibition also features The Unseen, a commissioned piece of art by Muhannad Shono that offers a modern viewpoint. Through a thoughtful experience, the Saudi visual artist’s thread-based installation figuratively joins the strands of the three religions.
The exhibition’s masterpieces include Louvre artworks and manuscripts. One of the most lavish ancient copies of the Quran to have survived to the current day is the Blue Quran folio, which is part of Abu Dhabi’s collection. The page, which has seven volumes, was created in Kairouan, Tunisia, in the ninth or tenth century. The gilded letters represent the holy light transmitted by God’s word, while the dark blue paper represents the cosmic universe. There will be a specific passage that reconstructs six pages of the fragmented Blue Quran.
