Arabesque

movement c. 700-present Middle East Europe

The arabesque is the rhythmic linear ornament of interlacing stems, leaves, and tendrils that became one of the defining languages of Islamic art, developing from the vegetal scroll mosaics of the Umayyad period and reaching classical refinement across the medieval and early modern Islamic world. Its endless, self-repeating growth - in both vegetal and strictly geometric varieties - has been read as an image of infinite divine order, generated by hidden geometry beneath the organic surface. The term is European ('arabesque' in the French ornament tradition), and the vocabulary was absorbed into Renaissance and 19th-century European design, while the word itself acquired other lives, from ballet's poised leg line to a genre of literary fantasia.

Stone relief inside the Umayyad Mosqr of the mosque is mainly white although it contains some fragmentary mosaics and other stone and plaste
Stone relief inside the Umayyad Mosqr of the mosque is mainly white although it contains some fragmentary mosaics and other stone and plasteCC BY 2.0 (credit: Jan Smith from Brisbane, Australia) · source

Defining characteristics

  • Continuous scrolling stems and tendrils that never terminate - the pattern reads as infinite
  • Split-palmette leaves, half-leaves, and buds alternating along a rhythmic line
  • Symmetry and rotational repetition: mirror, glide, and two- or four-fold repeats
  • Strict figure-ground interplay in which ground and ornament hold equal weight
  • Geometry beneath the organic surface: grids and radii generate the curves

Example works

  • Courtyard mosaics of the Umayyad Mosque — Umayyad court workshop (c. 715)
  • Baptistery of Saint Louis — Muhammad ibn al-Zayn (c. 1330)

Sources

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