Art in Amman

The next day we just had to go to see the Darat al Funun, which our Lonely Planet guide recommended. No-one seemed to have heard of it, and our taxi driver went round and round, asking, while we tried to guide him from the map. Finally we pulled up next to what appeared to be a blank wall, with some Arabic writing - "Darat al Furun!" he said, triumphantly, so we paid him off and nervously passed through the only entrance, immediately faced another blank wall with a flight of steps down to the left, which we followed until we came out between two houses.


On the right, by what appeared to be an open-air café, two disgruntled men sat. They nodded in response to our enquiry, so we found our way into the house and quite a reasonable art gallery with a striking exhibition of black-and-white photos. Soon we were joined by a charming young woman, with whom The Traveller struck up a conversation. She led us to the house to the left of where we had come in, which had appeared closed but was in fact open. There we met the owner of the place, widow of the founder, who had been a prominent Jordanian banker. She showed us around the second house, which was in large measure a tribute to her late husband, but also a gallery for her own paintings, spectacular impressions of the rock colours at Petra in particular. Finally she showed us out into the garden, which was very dry and a little uninspiring. A path led downhill to yet another house with another gallery.





This is the grand entrance to the gallery. There were exhibition areas to left and right, in one of which was an original comprising a pile of sand on the floor of a darkened room. From above, a series of pictures were projected onto the sand, which became almost alive. There was also a marvellous library, with a fine collection of art books particularly rich in Middle Eastern work with which we were not in the least familiar. We spent several hours in the heat of the day enjoying the air-conditioned splendour and browsing the collection.


Under the house was a cave that had been used as a place of worship since the earliest days. Today it was used as a stage for plays on summer evenings.


As it became cooler, we braved the open air, and found our way downhill into the centre of Amman, and a series of small souks. Some were devoted to gold and silver, some to clothes, others to shoes and more shoes, and in between stalls selling spices and sweets and medicines. In the centre of it all was the King Abdullah mosque, a symphony in pink and white stone - built in the 1920's.