Islamic Art in Spain Geometric Design Activities for Learning

Islamic Art and Geometric Design : Activities for Learning. — New York : The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004. — 46 p., ill. — ISBN 1-58839-084-five, 1-300-10343-3

Preface

In 1976, Jane Norman—with assist from Harry Bixler, Stef Stahl, and Margit Echols—wrote The Mathematics of Islamic Art, a groundbreaking Museum publication responding to the needs of math teachers eager to apply the Museum'southward resource in their classrooms. It became one of the Met's most popular educational publications and has long since been out of print. This new iteration, Islamic Art and Geometric Pattern, which includes current scholarship on Islamic art as well as expanded activities developed in Museum workshops, remains indebted to Jane Norman's piece of work. We therefore dedicate this publication with gratitude, affection, and admiration to Jane, whose inceptive vision and passion for this project has inspired all that has followed.

Foreword

Surface patterns on works of art created in the Islamic earth have been prized for centuries for their beauty, refinement, harmony, intricacy, and complication. Fine examples of Islamic art, from the seventh to the nineteenth century, can be seen in the Metropolitan Museum's collection. This publication features a pick of those objects in which geometric patterns predominate. By using these materials teachers volition be able to show their students how Islamic artists applied their imagination to an underlying geometric framework to create the patterns in these outstanding works of fine art. Students volition also learn the principles of geometric patterns and be able to create their own. We hope that these activities will spark in your students a life-long interest in art and blueprint.

We are fortunate indeed that these educational materials are supported by the Mary and James One thousand. Wallach Foundation. Their contribution underscores their high commitment to fine art, to students, and to teachers. We are deeply grateful for their generosity.

Philippe de Montebello

Director

Kent Lydecker

Associate Managing director for Education

Introduction

Works of art tin can be stimulating starting points for interdisciplinary investigations leading students to explorations of history, social studies, geography, and civilisation. Less commonly, but no less intriguing, fine art may be a stimulus for exploring concepts in math and geometry. This resource provides the means for teaching about the history and providing an introduction to Islamic art while learning well-nigh the diversity of geometric patterns employed past artists to embellish a broad range of works of fine art, including textiles, ceramics, metalwork, architectural elements, and manuscripts. Through the activities, students will larn the design principles and techniques by which the artists created these beautiful and intricate patterns.

Introduction to Geometric Design in Islamic Fine art

The principles and teachings of Islam every bit a style of life, a religious code, and a legal system were promulgated by Muhammad (ca. 570–632 A.D.), an Arab merchant from Mecca. These teachings were revealed to him over a period of many years commencement in 610 and were subsequently codification in the text known equally the Qur'an. The word of God, as set out in the Qur'an and handed down in the sayings of Muhammad (known equally hadith, or Traditions), forms the core of the religion.

The chief premise of the Islamic faith is monotheism, a renunciation of all deities except one, Allah, who alone is the creator, sustainer, and destroyer of life. Islam is Arabic for "submission," here to the single entity of Allah. The recognition of Muhammad equally Allah'southward last prophet, a prophet similar Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and the others that preceded Muhammad, is also a cardinal element of the belief.

Neither the Qur'an nor the Traditions incorporate specific mandates against figural representation in fine art. However, both sources take a firm opinion against idolatry and the worship of images. These precepts were interpreted strictly past early on Islamic religious leaders and exegetes as an injunction confronting the depiction of human or animal figures, although extant examples of architectural decoration, objects in all media, and illustrated manuscripts belie that stricture. Four types of decoration tin exist found in Islamic fine art: calligraphy, figural forms (man and beast), vegetal motifs, and geometric patterns. These patterns, either singly or combined, adorn all types of surfaces, forming intricate and circuitous arrangements.

While geometric ornamentation may have reached a pinnacle in the Islamic world, sources for the bones shapes and intricate patterns already existed in late artifact in the Byzantine and Sasanian empires. Islamic artists appropriated key elements from the classical tradition, then elaborated upon them to invent a new class of decoration that stressed the importance of unity, logic, and order. Essential to this unique mode were the contributions made past Islamic mathematicians, astronomers, and other scientists, whose ideas and technical advances are indirectly reflected in the creative tradition.

The basic instruments for constructing geometric designs were a compass and ruler. The circle became the foundation for Islamic pattern, in part a consequence of refinements made to the compass past Arabic astronomers and cartographers. The circle is oft an organizing chemical element underlying vegetal designs; information technology plays an important office in calligraphy, which the Arabs defined as "the geometry of the line"; and it structures all the complex Islamic patterns using geometric shapes. These patterns have three basic characteristics:

1. They are made upwardly of a small-scale number of repeated geometric elements. The simple forms of the circle, square, and straight line are the basis of the patterns. These elements are combined, duplicated, interlaced, and arranged in intricate combinations. Most patterns are typically based on one of two types of filigree—ane composed of equilateral triangles, the other of squares. A third type of grid, equanimous of hexagons, is a variation on the triangular schema. The mathematical term for these grids is "regular tessellation" (deriving from Latin tesserae, i.e., pieces of mosaic), in which one regular polygon is repeated to tile the plane.

2. They are two-dimensional. Islamic designs ofttimes have a background and foreground pattern. The placement of blueprint upon pattern serves to flatten the space, and there is no attempt to create depth. Vegetal patterns are may be set confronting a contrasting groundwork in which the plantlike forms interlace, weaving over and nether in a mode that emphasizes the foreground decoration. In other instances, the background is replaced past a contrast between light and shade. Sometimes information technology is impossible to distinguish between foreground and background. Some geometric designs are created by fitting all the polygonal shapes together like the pieces of a puzzle, leaving no gaps and, therefore, requiring no spatial interplay between foreground and groundwork. The mathematical term for this type of structure is "tessellation." The conception of infinite in Islamic art is completely different from Western models, which usually adopt a linear perspective and dissever the motion picture space into foreground, middle ground, and background. Artists of the Islamic earth were largely uninterested in linear perspective. Of the various styles of Islamic art, it was in Persian painting that a type of three-dimensional infinite was used in which figures could interact, simply this space presented multiple viewpoints and simultaneously featured bird'southward-eye and worm's-eye views.

iii. They are not designed to fit within a frame. Geometric decoration in Islamic art suggests a remarkable caste of freedom. The complex arrangements and combinations of elements are infinitely expandable; the frame surrounding a pattern appears to exist arbitrary and the bones system sometimes provides a unit from which the balance of the pattern can be both predicted and projected.

Contents

Introduction and How to Employ These Materials 8

Introduction to Geometric Design in Islamic Art ten

Selected Works of Art in The Metropolitan Museum of Art 12

Pattern-Making Activities 19

Resources and Glossary 43

Sample pages

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