Inspired by the East review – a glorious show Boris Johnson really ought to see

British Museum, London
With its harems, palaces, markets and dice-players, this magisterial exhibition highlights the debt western art owes to Islam – and the mutual fascination and inspiration of the two worlds

Boris Johnson should visit this exhibition that reveals Europe’s artistic debt to Islam. The prime minister claims the Muslim world has produced “nothing like” the Sistine Chapel, a wonder “beyond the technical accomplishment of Islamic art”. Tell that to Diego Fernandez Castro. In the late 19th century, this Spanish artist created a loving model of the Alhambra palace in Granada that expresses the exact opposite: this glorious medieval Andalusian palace is indeed an Islamic equal of the Sistine Chapel.

Far from being enemies locked in a culture war, the Christian and Muslim worlds, until recent times, looked at each other with mutual fascination

At the British Museum, London, 10 October-26 January.

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