Origin
Demonstrating the infinity of God to the realisation of the beauty of mathematics, there have been some great demands made of geometric designs and patterns over the course of a few millennia. Demands that have been more than met and even surpassed the human expectations with a plethora of compositions ranging from the minimalist to the extravagant.
Geometric prints are at their most prolific in Islamic art. The Qur’an teaches that only God should be worshipped, so Islamic religious art does not contain human figures or animals. Rather than choose subjects that could mean their art was mistaken for idolatry, Islamic artists used geometric symbols to create the impression of unending repetition.
Various techniques have been used over the centuries to exhibit geometric artistic achievements throughout the Islamic world, philosophical methods using compasses and straight edge and emphasizing the geometric underpinning of the patterns as a whole.
Islamic star patterns represent one of the world’s great ornamental design traditions. Star patterns are a harmonious fusion of mathematics, art, and spirituality, and expressions of symmetry, balance, and ingenuity. Star patterns also embody an enduring mathematical mystery.
The main concern of a designer or a craftsman was to present a visual harmony and balance, not only in deep detail, but also as a whole.
The geometric designs in Islamic art are often constructed on blends of recurring squares and circles, which may be overlapped and interlaced, to form complex and intricate patterns, including a wide variety of tessellations. These may constitute the entire decoration, may form a framework for floral or calligraphic accompaniments, or may withdraw 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.
In Islamic art the geometric figure of the circle represents the primordial symbol of unity and the ultimate source of all diversity in creation. The natural division of the circle into regular divisions is the ritual starting point for many traditional Islamic patterns.
Masjid Salaam Foyer
Islamic calligraphy is the artistic practice of handwriting and calligraphy, based upon the alphabet in the lands sharing a common Islamic cultural heritage. It includes Arabic, Ottoman, and Persian calligraphy. It is known in Arabic as khatt Islami (خط اسلامي), meaning Islamic line, design, or construction.
The development of Islamic calligraphy is strongly tied to the Qur’an; chapters, and excerpts from the Qur’an is a common and almost universal text upon which Islamic calligraphy is based. Deep religious association with the Qur’an, as well as suspicion of figurative art as idolatrous has led calligraphy to become one of the major forms of artistic expression in Islamic cultures
As Islamic calligraphy is highly venerated, most works follow examples set by well-established calligraphers, with the exception of secular or contemporary works. In antiquity, a pupil would copy a master’s work repeatedly until their handwriting is similar. The most common style is divided into angular and cursive, each further divided into several sub-styles.
Calligraphy Panels
The arabesque is a form of artistic decoration consisting of “surface decorations based on rhythmic linear patterns of scrolling and interlacing foliage, tendrils” or plain lines, often combined with other elements. Another definition is “Foliate ornament, used in the Islamic world, typically using leaves, derived from stylised half-palmettes, which were combined with spiralling stems”. It usually consists of a single design which can be ’tiled’ or seamlessly repeated as many times as desired. Within the very wide range of Eurasian decorative art that includes motifs matching this basic definition, the term “arabesque” is used consistently as a technical term by art historians to describe only elements of the decoration found in two phases: Islamic art from about the 9th century onward, and European decorative art from the Renaissance onward. Interlace and scroll decorations are terms used for most other types of similar patterns.
Arabesques are a fundamental element of Islamic art but they develop what was already a long tradition by the coming of Islam. The past and current usage of the term in respect of European art can only be described as confused and inconsistent. Some Western arabesques derive from Islamic art, but others are closely based on Ancient Roman decorations. In the West they are essentially found in the decorative arts, but because of the generally non-figurative nature of Islamic art, arabesque decoration is often a very prominent element in the most significant works, and plays a large part in the decoration of architecture.
Connections between the arabesque and Arabic knowledge of geometry remains a subject of debate; not all art historians are persuaded that such knowledge had reached, or was needed by, those creating arabesque designs, although in certain cases there is evidence that such a connection did exist. The case for a connection with Islamic mathematics is much stronger for the development of the geometric patterns with which arabesques are often combined in art. Geometric decoration often uses patterns that are made up of straight lines and regular angles but are clearly derived as a whole from curvilinear arabesque patterns; the extent to which these too are described as arabesque varies between different writers.