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Arabesque: An Iconic Islamic Art Form Al Majalla

arabesque design

With that the Arabesque art spread with the empire reaching every corner in the Islamic world and transform to variable versions in variable corners in the Islamic/Ottoman empire. Arabesque art depends on filling the surface with endless repetitive drawings as if there was a fear of emptiness. By repeating and intersecting drawings, the artist creates visual illusions of depth and three dimensions in what is in fact a flat, one-dimensional object. "Our main problem in the industry today is the marketing. We only deal with the merchant and cannot reach the client directly. Many people stopped working in it because of the high prices of the materials which do not meet the profit we get," Shibata said.

Islamic decoration

The arabesque concept can be confined to those formations in whichthe art of the Near East was born and, more precisely, to those forms of Islimiwhose main system of formation is the two-branch forms with The curvy and softnature. Renaissance arabesques maintained the classical tradition of median symmetry, freedom in detail, and heterogeneity of ornament. The arabesque of this period also allowed the inclusion of a broad range of elements—human beings, beasts, birds, fishes, flowers—in imaginative or fantasy scenes, usually with copious interlacings of vines, ribbons, or the like. Around the 7th century AD, Islam began to influence Indo-Islamic architecture on the Indian subcontinent. During the Medieval Period, patrons of art and architecture created numerous monuments and structures in the styles of native/regional Indic, Persian, Central Asian, Arabic, and Ottoman Turkish architecture. The architecture was shaped and inspired by Turks and Persians, who inherited a plethora of different designs from the Sassanian and Byzantine empires.

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Generalife also contains a palace built in the same decorative manner as those within the Alhambra but its elaborate vegetable and ornamental gardens made this lush complex a welcome retreat for the rulers of Granada. 1,730 meters (1 mile) of walls and thirty towers of varying size enclose this city within a city. Islamic craftsmen created tremendous patterns with exquisite details using rulers and compasses.

Famous Historic Arab Structures

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Most but not all foliage decoration in the preceding cultures terminated at the edge of the occupied space, although infinitely repeatable patterns in foliage are very common in the modern world in wallpaper and textiles. The arabesque branches are cut from the leaves of acanthus and immediately are split into two branches. There is also an arabesque on the base of a column which is related to the Hellenistic period (from Alexander to the Roman conquest of Greece). The base is decorated with a ring motif and two narrow stems on both sides of it.

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The Alhambra contains beautiful gardens, fountains, and complex planning. Many of the ornaments were made of stucco (plaster) instead of stone with complicatedly beautiful tile mosaics covering a good portion of the structure. Second, there is almost always a dome when looking at historic mosques, an element also used in the Byzantine and Italian Renaissance periods.

Flowers are rare until about 1500, after which they appear more often, especially in Ottoman art, and are often identifiable by species. In Ottoman art the large and feathery leaves called saz became very popular, and were elaborated in drawings showing just one or more large leaves. Eventually floral decoration mostly derived from Chinese styles, especially those of Chinese porcelain, replaces the arabesque in many types of work, such as pottery, textiles and miniatures.

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Arabesque simply means “in the Arab fashion” in French, and few scholars of Islamic art use it today. Arabesque designs basically represent a schema of a precise tree with all its twisted branches, leaves and foliage that have been abstracted. Sometimes it is a visual representation of an excited and curved snake body and sometimes a combination of lines reminiscent of the elephant’s trunk. The harmonious circulation of arabesque designs with continuous curves encompasses all the details of the plants, such as the leaves, flowers and buds. It establishes a kind of harmony and order among the components of the artwork. Pomegranates, figs, palm, acanthus and vine leaves are more commonly used in arabesque than other trees.

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At eye level, the walls are lavishly decorated with tiles laid in intricate geometric patterns. The remaining surfaces are covered with intricately carved stucco motifs organized in bands and panels of curvilinear patterns and calligraphy. With the Mongol invasion of western Asia in the thirteenth century and the establishment of a Mongol court in Iran in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, numerous Chinese motifs and patterns were adopted, though sometimes in markedly revised form. This period saw many transformations in the decorative language of Islamic art that would endure for centuries.

Why is it called arabesque?

arabesque design

In addition to the major problems that face many old crafts in Egypt such as the few workers and facilities, the Coronavirus pandemic came to affect the arabesque industry and export as it relies to a large extent on tourism. A Corinthian capital, related to Greek art in the 4th century BC, is exhibited at the National Museum of Athens. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Inscriptions suggest that the work of Qutub Minar was begun by Qutub-ud-din Aibak in 1198 and completed by his successor Iltutmish in 1215, although the two upper tiers were rebuilt at later dates.

Arabesque as a unique foliate design with the form of ivy, clover, palm or rose extends in an endless repeat. The best place to start exploring the evolution of makeup in the first phase of Islamic art is the exterior of the Qasr Al-Mshatta (Jordan winter palace which its facade, has been removed and is on display at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin). On the left wall of the gate, animal motifs are carved between the vine leaves or circular stems, while on the right wall of the gate, only the foliate forms are used. The diligent effort done here to make the leaf and stem shape of the vine beautifully embellish can well represent the style and the creation of “Arabesque” (Zaki Muhammad Hassan). This ornamental design, often foliated and floral, is used in almost all Islamic era and can be considered as a factor of artistic coexistence and unity in Islamic art.

Arabesque is distinguished by its intricate, flowing, and rhythmic patterns, which draw inspiration from nature. Primarily found in Islamic architecture and design, it showcases geometric and vegetal motifs. Arabesque highlights the harmonious interplay of symmetry, repetition, and ornamental detail, creating a captivating aesthetic of beauty and elegance. Eurasian decorative art includes motifs (Art and iconography), and Art Historians use this technical term (Arabesque) to define only decoration elements.

These motifs have been used in almost all kinds of artworks fromthe beginning of the Islamic era to the present. It has decorated hundreds ofartwork types related to tiling, plastering, painting, sculpture, rug weaving,metalworking, pottery, woodcarving, gilding, and so on. Alhakim Mosque, Cairo, which was built in the 10th century, has a beautiful Islamic slate in its decorative stuccos.

By the combination of the circles, various types of Khatai flowers are created in the form of buds, bloomsand complete flower with has abstract effects. The most full-blown flower inthe Khatai collection is known as four o’clock flower. With the coming of the Baroque, the use of arabesque decoration fell into disfavour until the middle of the 18th century, when a new series of Roman arabesques was discovered at Herculaneum. In 1757 the Comte de Caylus published his Recueil de peintures antiques (“Collection of Ancient Paintings”), and by 1770 engraved models for arabesques again were being published in Paris. The late reliefs and paintings are among the most beautiful arabesques ever produced, but the formality of Directoire and Empire design after the Revolution gradually ended the fashion. The first one consists of lines and angles, reflected and rotated that in turn creates geometric shapes in the negative spaces in between.2.

However, these complex patterns seem to embody a refusal to adhere strictly to the rules of geometry. In terms of their abstractness, repetitive motifs, and symmetry, geometric patterns have much in common with the so-called arabesque style seen in many vegetal designs. Calligraphic ornamentation also appears in conjunction with geometric patterns. These may constitute the entire decoration, may form a framework for floral or calligraphic embellishments, or may retreat into the background around other motifs. The complexity and variety of patterns used evolved from simple stars and lozenges in the ninth century, through a variety of 6- to 13-point patterns by the 13th century, and finally to include also 14- and 16-point stars in the sixteenth century.

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