Virtual pole press: Nowadays, shisha has a great comeback in the West, of course, people no longer value its taste or hallucinogenic effect, but the unique beauty of shisha appliances, as well as emo when smoking alone, or high when multiple people smoke together.
Cultural inclusion refers to the internalization phenomenon that occurs when different cultures come into contact with each other, and this process includes many stages such as acceptance, synthesis, and creation, through which culture absorbs external factors to enrich itself. Cultural inclusion is different from both cultural confrontation and cultural assimilation, which is a process of systematic absorption, transformation and reconstruction of foreign cultures and heterogeneous cultures, and at the same time it is also a process of revaluation, reflection and transformation of local cultures. The artifacts depicted in his works by the miniature painter Abasi in his works at the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th century perfectly embody the fusion of Eastern and Western art.
▲ Reza Abbasil"Archer Smoking Picture"
In 1630, watercolor on paper depicted gold miniature painting
Collection of the Harvard Art Museum
In "Archer Smoking", Abbasi depicts an old iron dressed as a nomadic man, holding a bow in one hand and a delicate hookah in the other, and smoking happily. Although the hookah with the portrait of the figure in the painting is not easy to determine the material, it is either glass or ceramic. If it is glass, it has a bit of the style of the snuff bottle in the painting; if it is ceramic, then the green glazed shisha pot in the picture below is comparable to the object in the painting.
▲ Green glazed porcelain hookah
Collection of islamic Art Gallery, Doha, Qatar
Shisha is known in the West as "hookah", a name derived from its ancient name "huqqa" in the Indian subcontinent. Regarding the origin of shisha in India and in Persia, judging from the number and types of shisha appliances that have survived, it is true that India and Persia are the most.
▲ [Italian] Francesco Renaldi, "The Indian Girl Who Smokes Shisha"
Oil on canvas, second half of the 18th century, 55.8 x 96.8 cm
Collection of the British Arts Center at Yale University, New Haven, USA
▲ "Karim Khan smoking shisha"
To be sure, before Jesuit priests introduced tobacco from the Americas to the South Asian subcontinent and the Middle East, people here often smoked cannabis with hookah utensils. This ancient soft drug, which has long been used in medicine, entertainment and religious activities throughout human history, also originated in the Indo-Persian region, and is geographically coinciding with the home of shisha. When shisha was combined with modern tobacco, it spread more widely. By the 18th and 19th centuries, from China in the east to Europe in the west, hookahs could be seen everywhere, especially in cafes and restaurants, and the convention of "a cigarette after a meal" seems to have begun with the smoking of shisha.
▲ Damascus shisha shop
▲ 18th century Cairo café
Since then, although shisha has experienced the challenge of dry smoke, cigars and paper smoke, its international status has plummeted, but now shisha has a great comeback in the West, of course, people are no longer pursuing its taste or hallucinogenic effect, but the unique beauty of shisha appliances, as well as emo when smoking alone, or high when multiple people smoke together.
▲ [O] Rudolf Ernst, "Shisha", circa 1900
▲ [French] Jean-Leo Jérôme,"Cafe Cairo"
Oil on canvas, 1884 or earlier, 54.6 x 62.9 cm
Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA
▲ [Fa] Jean-Leu Gérôme "After the Bath"
Oil on canvas, 1878, 82.6 x 66.7 cm
Collection of the Museum of Eastern and Western Art in Kiev, Ukraine
Different eras, different regions, and different smoking methods determine the style, material and decoration of shisha appliances. In the next part, we continue to explore the colorful shisha world.