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I have written several posts on the influence of Islamic art on Western art. I argue that this very different from allowing huge populations of Muslims to immigrate to the West. Artistic influences are at the discretion of the artist. Not only that, but the artist (or architect) naturally subsumes the foreign art into his own cultural style, so the object or image doesn't look so foreign. Still, the modern painters and architects who spent so much time incorporating primitive and oriental influences into their art spent weren't immediately accepted by the public, since their work did appear so alien.
Here are some articles discussing this both at my art blog, Camera Lucida, and here at Our Changing Landscape.
- How much Influence did Orientalism have on Western Art?
- Why were Modernists Artsists so Interested in Non-Western Art?
Here is a quote from the post linked above:
The same spirit that produced Islamic "art" - which is really a profusion of ornamentation and decoration - is the same spirit that produced, eventually, abstract and non-representational art. That spirit is the disinclination to reproduce representational art, since non-representational art is believed (by these [modern] art practitioners) to be more pure and more spiritual.