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has incorporated its original "Moorish Revival"
style onto a condo's facade.
In the previous post: "Visually Changing a Place: A Strategy for Take-over" I write:
Modern "Moorish" influence involves waves of Muslims who are leaving their countries to come to the West in a form of stealthy, steady colonization. Modern day Islamic influences are all about changing our landscape to fit the Muslims' worldview and way of life.I use the word "modern" incorrectly in this context. I should have written "contemporary" instead. "Contemporary" better explains this new wave of Islamic influence on the West from the late 20th until now, which consists primarily of non-Western, Muslim peoples moving into Western lands. Islamic influences during the late 19th and early 20th centuries on modern artists such as Matisse were mainly transplanted either through documents and articles (of art, etc.) or travel by individual Westerners into Islamic lands.
Matisse, for example, spent some time in Morocco, where he obtained cultural and artistic insights that he incorporated into his Western art. This didn't make his (and other modernists') art "Islamic" but rather produced a new style of art which took cues from non-Western cultures to mark its own. Other influences on modern artists include the "primitive art" of Africa, and Chinese, Japanese and even Russian influences.
Currently, there is no "incorporation" or even adjustment of these Islamic and Muslim influences. What we're getting is simply a direct transplant of ideas, cultures and behaviors that the waves of Muslim immigrants are bringing into our lands. There is no interchange, assimilation, or "incorporation" of these ideas and cultures to fit our Western sentiments. What we've really got is the "other" living in our midst, in his full and glorious strangeness.