Geometric interlacing patterns are a subcategory of Islamic pattern and ornament. They can be considered a particular type of arabesque

Arabesque

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...

 which developed from the rich interlace patterning of the Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

, and Coptic art

Coptic art

Coptic art is a term used either for the art of Egypt produced in the early Christian era or for the art produced by the Coptic Christians themselves. Coptic art is most well known for its wall-paintings, textiles, illuminated manuscripts, and metalwork, much of which survives in monasteries and...

. One of the first Western studies of the subject was E. H. Hankin

Ernest Hanbury Hankin

Ernest Hanbury Hankin , was a British bacteriologist, aeronautical theorist and naturalist. Working mainly in India, he studied malaria, cholera and other diseases...

's "The Drawing of Geometric Patterns in Saracenic Art", published in Memoirs of the Archaeological Societry of India in 1925.

According to Eva Baer, in her book Islamic Ornament:

....the intricate interlacings common in later medieval Islamic art

Islamic art

Islamic art encompasses the visual arts produced from the 7th century onwards by people who lived within the territory that was inhabited by or ruled by culturally Islamic populations...

, are already prefigured in Umayyad

Umayyad

The Umayyad Caliphate was the second of the four major Arab caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. It was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty, whose name derives from Umayya ibn Abd Shams, the great-grandfather of the first Umayyad caliph. Although the Umayyad family originally came from the...

 architecture revetments: in floor mosaics, window grilles, stone and stucco

Stucco

Stucco or render is a material made of an aggregate, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as decorative coating for walls and ceilings and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture...

 carvings and wall paintings(Khirbat al-Mafjar, Qusayr'Amra, Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi etc.), and in the decoration of a whole group of early east Iranian, eighth- to tenth-century metal objects.

Examples of geometric interlacing can also be found in Arabic calligraphy

Calligraphy

Calligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of fancy lettering . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner"...

, particularly designs made in in the Square Kufic

Kufic

Kufic is the oldest calligraphic form of the various Arabic scripts and consists of a modified form of the old Nabataean script. Its name is derived from the city of Kufa, Iraq, although it was known in Mesopotamia at least 100 years before the foundation of Kufa. At the time of the emergence of...

 style.

Owen Jones

Owen Jones (architect)

Owen Jones was a London-born architect and designer of Welsh descent. He was a versatile architect and designer, and one of the most influential design theorists of the nineteenth century...

, in his catalog for the Crystal Palace

The Great Exhibition

The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations or The Great Exhibition, sometimes referred to as the Crystal Palace Exhibition in reference to the temporary structure in which it was held, was an international exhibition that took place in Hyde Park, London, from 1 May to 15 October...

exhibition, wrote about the decorative art found in Alhambra

Alhambra

The Alhambra , the complete form of which was Calat Alhambra , is a palace and fortress complex located in the Granada, Andalusia, Spain...

, where much of the art work consists of interwoven designs, that:

The grace and refinement of Greek ornament is here surpassed. Possessing, equally with the Greeks, an appreciation of pure form, the Moors exceeded them in variety and imagination.

E. H. Hankin, in his book The Drawing of Geometric Patterns in Saracenic Art, takes the view that the artists who created these designs used a method based on the use of the compass and the straight edge. This view is supported by the majority of contemporary authorities on the subject, such as Keith Critchlow

Keith Critchlow

Keith Barry Critchlow is an artist, lecturer, author, and professor of architecture in England, and a co-founder of the Temenos Academy.He was educated at the Summerhill School and the Royal College of Art...

 in his book, Islamic Patterns: An Analytical and Cosmological Approach. This explains how ornamented objects as varied in size as a book or a mosque, were treated by artists using the same geometric methods adopted to the size and nature of the object being ornamented.

On the other hand Owen Jones, in The Grammar of Ornament, describes a method whereby this type of interlace ornament is, instead, designed based on a foundation of geometric grids, with the same foundational grids re-drawn to the size of the object.

External links

• Craig S. Kaplan Taprats a website devoted to Islamic design, with an applet to draw such star-like figures.