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Many Islamic designs are built on squares and circles, typically repeated, overlapped and interlaced to form intricate and complex patterns. [1] A recurring motif is the 8-pointed star, often seen in Islamic tilework; it is made of two squares, one rotated 45 degrees with respect to the other.
Islamic calligraphy has also displayed figurative themes. Examples of this are anthropomorphic and zoomorphic calligrams. [40] Islamic calligraphy forms evolved, especially in the Ottoman period, to fulfill a function similar to figurative art. [41] When on paper, Islamic calligraphy is often seen with elaborate frames of Ottoman illumination. [41]
Islamic ornament is the use of decorative forms and patterns in Islamic art and Islamic architecture. Its elements can be broadly divided into the arabesque , using curving plant-based elements, geometric patterns with straight lines or regular curves, and calligraphy , consisting of religious texts with stylized appearance, used both ...
Islamic countries have developed modern and contemporary art, with very vigorous art scenes, but the degree to which these should be grouped in a special category as "Islamic art" is questionable, although many artists deal with Islam-related themes, and use traditional elements such as calligraphy.
Although Byzantine mosaics evolved out of earlier Hellenistic and Roman practices and styles, [4] craftspeople within the Byzantine Empire made important technical advances [4] and developed mosaic art into a unique and powerful form of personal and religious expression that exerted significant influence on Islamic art produced in Umayyad and ...
T. W. Arnold (1864–1930), an early historian of Islamic art, stated that "Islam has never welcomed painting as a handmaid of religion as both Buddhism and Christianity have done. Mosques have never been decorated with religious pictures, nor has a pictorial art been employed for the instruction of the heathen or for the edification of the ...
Islamic decoration and craftsmanship had a significant influence on Western art when Venetian merchants brought goods of many types back to Italy from the 14th century onwards. [37] The tessellations of zellij tilework in the Alhambra of Granada were also an important source of inspiration for the work of 20th-century Dutch artist M. C. Escher.
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 ...