Taj Mahal and Statue of Liberty - Research Paper Example

Taj Mahal and Statue of Liberty The greatest sparkler of Indo-Islamic structural design, the Taj Mahal is counted as one of the most stunning and beloved constructions of the world. The tombstone was constructed in Agra, India, in the honor of Mumtaz Mahal, the much loved spouse of the Mughal ruler Shah Jahan. Building of the mausoleum started in 1632 and around 20,000 laborers were employed for more than two decades. For the period of the time in power of Shah Jahan, the building was recognized just as the rauza, the burial place. Afterward, the tomb would be named as the Taj Mahal, a name derived from the name of the queen Mumtaz Mahal. Comparatively, The Statue of Liberty is a huge neoclassical monument on Liberty Island in the harbor of New York, modeled by Frederic Bartholdi and devoted on October 28, 1886. The sculpture, a present to the U.S from the populace of France, is of a robed stature of a female symbolizing Libertas, the Roman idol of liberty, who carries a torch and a tablet representing the law upon which is emblazoned the date on which America declared its Independence, July 4, 1776. A broken shackle rest near her feet. The sculpture has turned out to be a symbol of liberty and of the U.S. According to the views of Tavernier, the French jeweler, who declared to had witnessed the building of the Taj Mahal from the start to end, the monument of white marble was put up in the era when the wealth of the Mughal Kingdom were such that simply the premium resources were used for the construction and its decoration plus the excellence of the craftsmanship present in India was almost certainly better compared to any preceding period. Acknowledged for its symmetry, the tomb is placed on a hoisted platform encircled by minarets. Inside of the mausoleum are fragile works of mosaic and limestone walls ornamented with complicated designs of inlaid valuable stones. The royal leader Shah Jahan is believed to have celebrated the centenary of his wife's loss in the tomb, going down on his knees before the monument of white marble with ornaments and semiprecious gems studded into it, while prayers were offered for the calm and peace of the soul of the empress’. Disproving the romanticism of the aforesaid, many modern historians argue that the Taj Mahal is a burial chamber far too impressive to honor the reminiscence of one female, even the beloved wife of a royal leader, states Amina Okada and M.C. Joshi in Taj Mahal (1993). A number of historians consider, resume Okada and Joshi, that at the back of the tombstone’s exquisiteness and magnificence of structure, at the back of it’s spotlessness of its boundary, and behind the sober elegance of its beautification is an dictatorial king vaunting his splendor and generosity to the world. Although the tombstone is obviously funereal, these historians also distinguish a figurative and symbolic importance for the tomb - an importance evenly accounted for by the supremacy of a ruler obsessed with his own sumptuousness. To a scholar of Islamic structural design, writes Gavin Hambly in Cities of Mughul India (1964), the fundamental and most lasting impact left by this unparalleled tombstone is its Persian foundation. This is structural design in the Safavid form. The Taj Mahal - in its excellence of proportion and space, in the traditional faultlessness of its shape, in its mixture of delicacy and monumentality, and in the superiority of its beautification - stand for the culmination on Indian territory of the Persian mastermind at work. Hambly states art historian, Hermann Goetz who states: “The Taj Mahal is a work of the finest Safavid taste... Except for the use of the most immaculate Makrana marble which translates the gay and gaudy Persian taste into the dreamy, languid spirit of later Mughal art, there are in the Taj Mahal only a few other deviations from Safavid orthodoxy - the Rajput chahtris around the dome, some differences in the proportion of the dome and dome drum (common, however, in the Deccan), and also the minarets, probably inspired by Mahmud Khilji's tomb at Mandu. It is one of the freaks of history that this 'Wonder of the World,’ which is least characteristic of Mughal art, has become the classic representative and emblem of Mughal civilization.” In contrast, considering our second monument, the statue of liberty the sculpture’s steel structure was completed by Gustave Eiffel a French engineer, better identified as the gentleman at the back of the Eifel tower in Paris. Appreciation to an inventive creation consisting of plates of copper joint to the metal structure, the sculpture is adaptable enough to endure intense storms. Huge iron rods join the structure to a middle pylon. The Statue of Liberty was built in Paris, France. It undertook nine years prior to it was finished in 1884 subsequent to which it was dispatched to the USA in two hundred and fourteen crates. Even previous to the arrival of the sculpture, Bartholdi himself took a trip to the Unites States to talk about the site of the figurine with president Ulysses S. Grant. Finally it was decided to put up the sculpture at a little island in the New York harbor. At the moment the island is recognized as Liberty Island. The main and most discomforting difficulty was the building of the base, which had to be financed by the Americans themselves. The figurine torch was exhibited for six years in Madison Square Park  - from 1876 to 1882 - in an effort to generate attention and appeal to funds. However it was just after publisher Joseph Pulitzer printed the names of the people who contributed money for the venture that the money started pouring in. Finally, the figurine was built ten years behind schedule, in 1886, when it was formally launched by president Grover Cleveland. It is 465 meter (151ft) far above the ground and combined with the pedestal it reaches (305ft) 93 meter. Moving back to Taj Mahal , This era of Mughal structural design best demonstrate the maturity of a design that had combined Islamic architecture with its native matching part. Till the time the Mughals constructed the Taj, although pleased of their Timurid and Persian ancestry, they had happened to consider them as Indian. Copplestone writes "Although it is certainly a native Indian production, its architectural success rests on its fundamentally Persian sense of intelligible and undisturbed proportions, applied to clean, and uncomplicated surfaces." In contrast the statue of liberty has become an iconic factor in the American ethos. This huge figurine is a work of art of the human strength and courage. The teamwork among the engineer Eiffel and sculptor Bartholdi resulted in the manufacture of a technical wonder that combine together engineering and art in a powerful and new method. The representative worth of the Statue of Liberty is based in two essential aspects. It was gifted by France with the purpose of asserting the historical coalition among the two states. It was sponsored by international contribution in acknowledgment of the formation of the main beliefs of democracy and freedom by the U.S. Announcement of Self-government, which the Sculpture possesses in her left hand. The Figurine also almost immediately turned out to be and has endured as a sign of the relocation of citizens from a lot of state into the USA in the early 20th centuries. She persist as an extremely strong sign – inspiring thought, discussion and complaints – of principles such as independence, peace, human rights, elimination of slavery, opportunity and democracy. Work cited: Tillotson, G H. R. Taj Mahal. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2008. Print. Nou, Jean L, and Amina Okada. Taj Mahal. New York: Abbeville Press, 1993. Print. Hambly, Gavin. Cities of Mughal India: Delhi, Agra, Fatehpur Sikri. Hambly. S.l.: Putnam, 1988. Print Copplestone, Trewin. World Architecture: An Illustrated History from Earliest Times. London: Hamlyn, 1981. Print. Read More