Decorative reasons for Islamic art

The Arts of Islam developed a great original repertory of decorative reasons. One can distinguish two great types: geometrical reasons and the vegetable arabesque S.

Geometrical reasons

See the detailed article Arab geometrical Figures

the octagone and stars with eight branches

The figure of the Octogone is recurring in all the forms of Islamic art. Resulting from the combination of two concentric squares, it allows the drawing in star and is geared down sometimes out of stars with sixteen branches. Octagones and stars with eight branches can symbolize the astrological representation skies. Just as that of the Jews with six branches and the pentagon returns to an originally Western representation, it is singular to note the appearance of three stars as symbol in the cities which knew the three Monothéisme S, such Jerusalem or Grenade.

Arabesque S vegetable

The arabesques are found on all the forms of mediums, since the Architecture until the art of the book while passing by ceramics, metal… According to the times and the places, differences appear, in particular in the shapes of sheets and the stems.

Repertory of the reasons

Vocabulary

palmette : in general, one calls palmette a reason for sheet. The palmettes can take various forms: broad (" is said; grasses") and lobed, or on the contrary more frayed, to a lobe or two (palmette bifide).

In Al-Andalus

In addition to the ivy, the sheets and fruits of the palm, the grenade and the Ananas give inspirations for the reasons, just like the Pistil of the Fleur S. In general, the artists seek to stylize their vegetable reasons, i.e. to bring back the representation to a simplified stylistic reason, which contains the gasoline of the model; this reason is then repeated indefinitely on the walls.

Chronological alternatives:

the Almohades introduce asymmetrical palmettes bifides
Under the Almoravides, they are palmettes with multiple lobes which appear;
the Nasrides take again these reasons and introduce the smooth sheet with only one lobe, with or without stem. The result is close to the stylized Fleur of lily.

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