Arabesque
Another definition is "Foliate ornament, used in the Islamic world, typically using leaves, derived from stylised half-palmettes, which were combined with spiralling stems".
[7] What makes Islamic arabesque unique and distinct from vegetal decorations of other cultures is its infinite correspondence and the fact that it can be extended beyond its actual limits.
Early Islamic art, for example in the famous 8th-century mosaics of the Great Mosque of Damascus, often contained plant-scroll patterns, in that case by Byzantine artists in their usual style.
[10] Though the broad outline of the process is generally agreed, there is a considerable diversity of views held by specialist scholars on detailed issues concerning the development, categorization and meaning of the arabesque.
[14] Many arabesque patterns disappear at (or "under", as it often appears to a viewer) a framing edge without ending and thus can be regarded as infinitely extendable outside the space they actually occupy; this was certainly a distinctive feature of the Islamic form, though not without precedent.
The early Mshatta Facade is recognisably some sort of vine, with conventional leaves on the end of short stalks and bunches of grapes or berries, but later forms usually lack these.
These principles include the bare basics of what makes objects structurally sound and, by extension, beautiful (i.e. the angle and the fixed/static shapes that it creates—esp.
For example, the square, with its four equilateral sides, is symbolic of the equally important elements of nature: earth, air, fire and water.
The coming together of these three forms creates the Arabesque, and this is a reflection of unity arising from diversity; a basic tenet of Islam.
Mistakes in repetitions may be intentionally introduced as a show of humility by artists who believe only Allah can produce perfection, although this theory is disputed.
Ettinghausen et al. describe the arabesque as a "vegetal design consisting of full...and half palmettes [as] an unending continuous pattern...in which each leaf grows out of the tip of another.
Arabesque and Moresque are really distinct; the latter is from the Arabian style of ornament, developed by the Byzantine Greeks for their new masters, after the conquests of the followers of Mahomet; and the former is a term pretty well restricted to varieties of cinquecento decoration, which have nothing in common with any Arabian examples in their details, but are a development derived from Greek and Roman grotesque designs, such as we find them in the remains of ancient palaces at Rome, and in ancient houses at Pompeii.
Pliny and Vitruvius give us no name for the extravagant decorative wall-painting in vogue in their time, to which the early Italian revivers of it seem to have given the designation of grotesque, because it, was first discovered in the arched or underground chambers (grotte) of Roman ruins—as in the golden house of Nero, or the baths of Titus.
"[23][24] The book Opera nuova che insegna a le donne a cuscire … laqual e intitolata Esempio di raccammi (A New Work that Teaches Women how to Sew … Entitled "Samples of Embroidery"), published in Venice in 1530, includes "groppi moreschi e rabeschi", Moorish knots and arabesques.
[28] Another related term is moresque, meaning "Moorish"; Randle Cotgrave's A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues of 1611 defines this as: "a rude or anticke painting, or carving, wherin the feet and tayles of beasts, &c, are intermingled with, or made to resemble, a kind of wild leaves, &c."[29] and "arabesque", in its earliest use cited in the OED (but as a French word), as "Rebeske work; a small and curious flourishing".
[30] In France "arabesque" first appears in 1546,[31] and "was first applied in the latter part of the 17th century" to grotesque ornament, "despite the classical origin of the latter", especially if without human figures in it—a distinction still often made, but not consistently observed.
[32] Over the following centuries, the three terms "grotesque", "moresque", and "arabesque" were used largely interchangeably in English, French, and German for styles of decoration derived at least as much from the European past as the Islamic world, with "grotesque" gradually acquiring its main modern meaning, related more to Gothic gargoyles and caricature than to either Pompeii-style Roman painting or Islamic patterns.
These basic motifs gave rise to numerous variants, for example, where the branches, generally of a linear character, were turned into straps or bands.
Originating in the Middle East, they were introduced to continental Europe via Italy and Spain ... Italian examples of this ornament, which was often used for bookbindings and embroidery, are known from as early as the late fifteenth century.
A second group, far smaller than the first, comprises modern ornaments: moresques, interlaced bands, strapwork, and elements such as cartouches"—categories he goes on to discuss individually.
According to Harold Osborne, in France, the "characteristic development of the French arabesque combined bandwork deriving from the moresque with decorative acanthus foliage radiating from C-scrolls connected by short bars".
[21] Apparently starting in embroidery, it then appears in garden design before being used in Northern Mannerist painted decorative schemes "with a central medallion combined with acanthus and other forms" by Simon Vouet and then Charles Lebrun who used "scrolls of flat bandwork joined by horizontal bars and contrasting with ancanthus scrolls and palmette.
As used in Moorish and Arabic decorative art (from which, almost exclusively, it was known in the Middle Ages), representations of living creatures were excluded; but in the arabesques of Raphael, founded on the ancient Græco-Roman work of this kind, and in those of Renaissance decoration, human and animal figures, both natural and grotesque, as well as vases, armour, and objects of art, are freely introduced; to this the term is now usually applied, the other being distinguished as Moorish Arabesque, or Moresque.
