This cultural mix is typical of many Mediterranean areas, such as the lands of Sicily or the Greek islands with a lot of history, which, like Tunisia, were constantly exposed to merchants, sailors and empires from all over the region. Culturally, Tunisians are a fairly liberal nation. Throughout its history, cultural exchanges with the rest of the Mediterranean peoples have been frequent. Art has been very influenced by the cultural mix of the country.
Crafts
The most important centers for pottery and ceramics are on the island of Djerba and Nabeul, respectively. In hundreds of workshops, various ceramics and numerous uncooked clay objects are made. Most of the vases, jugs and tiles are made following old models in which colors such as white, blue, green and yellow prevail, all very characteristic of Tunisia. Nor can we forget the excellent work that is done with the chiselling of copper, an ancient tradition carried out with perfect precision.
Dance
The dance has become typical of Tunisia, a country located in Africa according to DENTISTRYMYTH. The dancer, accompanied by wind instruments such as the “Mizwid” (a kind of bagpipe) and drums, balances a clay or clay vase on her head while following the beats of the drum with her hips, emphasized by belts adorned with large pompoms. . The men also dance this dance, but generally they swing towers of vases on their heads.
Painting
Modern galleries are located in and around the capital, and the artist’s refuge of Sidi Bou Saïd stands out. Mounir Letaief is a painter whose work is very representative of Tunisian painting. Always the same and in constant innovation of an aesthetic forged in the substrate of a mixed technique. His brush reveals contour, color and space with an innate ease and sensitivity in which he combines the abstract with the figurative. His work reflects a playful and intimate temperament that captures the authentic essences of public scenes. Beyond the visible, the artist describes a vision, works with matter, studies light and nuances tones.
Modern Tunisian painting can be traced to the second half of the 20th century. The “School of Tunis”, composed of painters such as Ammar Farhat, Yahia Turki, Jelel Ben Abdallah, Abdelaziz Gorgi, Ali Bellagha, have been considered as the first modern artists. In this painting, the pictorial language translates a nostalgia for a traditional society changing for the standards of a modern world. This theme of nostalgia, authenticity and attachment to traditional values are the main elements of the “School of Tunis”. That is why you can find many daily scenes of weddings, the hammam or love.
Architecture
The Amphitheater of El Djem, also called the Coliseum of Thysdrus, is located in the city of Thysdrus, in the Roman province of Africa (current El Djem, in the vilayato of Mahdia, Tunisia), is the largest Roman amphitheater in Africa and the fourth in the world, behind the Colosseum in Rome, the Amphitheater of Capua and the Amphitheater of Pozzuoli.
It measures 147.9 m long and 122 m wide, and the interior terrain is an oval measuring 64.5 by 38.8 m. It had a capacity for 35,000 spectators. It is located at the coordinates 35 ° 17′47 ″ N 10 ° 42′25 ″ E / 35.29639, 10.70694.
It was built in 238 AD. By the Gordian proconsul, under the reign of the emperor Maximino el Thracian. It was probably the scene of gladiatorial fights, chariot races and other circus games.
Although some of its stones were used to build the city of El Djem, it is still very well preserved. It is assumed that it remained intact until the seventeenth century; According to the Arab tradition, from 1695 the exterior facade began to be demolished. The lion’s ditches and a very elaborate system of pipes and cisterns for collecting rainwater are still preserved.
Literature
Iffiqiyya literature begins its development from the 11th century, when in the notable urban centers of the country (Qayrawan, Tunis, Mahdia, etc.) a few poets of some value work: Ibrahim, al-Husrá (d. 1022), lbn garaf, m. in al-Andalus (1068), Ibri al-talá ‘and al-Kafif al-HusrI- (d. 1095). From the same period, he is the great anthologist and critic of literature Ibn Raá-lq (d. 1064). The brilliant Hafsí state that governed Tunisia from the 13th century onwards promoted an interesting literary movement of which the poets Ahmad al-Gassiini, Garaf al-Din Ab5-1-Fad1 and Abu Zakariyá ‘(d. 1249), the first Hafsí sultan, are exponents. Independent.
As the Andalusian emigration also reaches Tunisia, Tunisian is largely the work of the Levantines Ilm al-Abbár (d. 1260), secretary of the Sultan; lUázim almQartá ~ anni (d. 1285), author of an elegiac marriage for the loss of the eastern area of al-Andalus, and the Abií-1-Hal ~ á ~ de Baeza polygraph (d. 1255). This Andalusian emigration, in which the popular, the intellectual and the artisan mix, contributes to giving the culture of Tunisia a particular imprint, jealously preserved to our time. The greatest figure in Tunisian literature, the greatest Arab historian of all times and one of the first in the history of mankind, is another descendant of Andalusians: ‘Abd al-Rahmán b. Jaldun (v.; m. 1406).
In the middle of the 19th century, and taking advantage of the relative independence that Tunisian governors or beys enjoy in certain matters, a very slight literary awakening began in Tunisia, with figures such as Muhammad Qabadú. It is the moment when the nascent press takes hold (v. X) and when groups of ulama, as in neighboring Algeria, undertake a work of scholarship and study of specifically Islamic issues that is then continued brilliantly, and that has great repercussion in the formation of a contemporary intellectual elite, of which Hasan Husní ‘Abd al-Wahháb (1883 – 1967) and Muhammaá al-Fááil ilm’ Al-ur are representatives. His contemporary is the classical poet and courtier Muhammad Jaznadar (d. 1954).
By 1925 breaks a generation of very young poets, whose work will then be dramatically cut short in general, among which ‘Abd el-Razzaq Karabáka (n. 1904), Mahmã-Ud Bourguiba (n. 1910) and especially Ab5-1- Qásim al-Ia- * bbi (1909 – 1934), the greatest Tunisian poet and one of the most sensitive spirits in contemporary Arabic literature. His colleague is the rare and bohemian ‘Al¡ al-Du’á ~ -i (d. 1949), and somewhat later the narrator Balir Iráyaf (b. 1917), who writes preferably in dialect Arabic, and MahmÚd Mas’adí, playwright of interest.
