Arabic ornament. Ancient national ornament

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

To learn and understand the traditions of the people is possible only through their cultural and artistic heritage. The most ancient human activity is decorating with different images of oneself, one's clothes, dwelling, various objects, tools, weapons. A widely used form of image art is ancient ornamentation. It cannot be separated from the object on which it exists. But more often it is more valuable in itself and is a work of art. By style there are geometric, floral, in appearance - picturesque, sculptural, graphic ornaments. Any beautiful ornament carries a certain motif, consisting of one or more elements. This set of elements in the ornament is always designed as a single work. By the way the elements are depicted, by the way the master created the scheme of patterns, how he combines motifs from flora or fauna with material or geometric motifs with the shape of an object, one can determine the cultural and historical roots of the ornament, its belonging to a particular people.

And whenclassify the ornament, then first they talk about its origin, and then determine the purpose and content. The importance of the ancient ornament, in all its national diversity, in the development of modern types of applied art can hardly be overestimated.

Classification of the variety of ornaments

Drawings decorating earthenware and chasing on silver trays; scheme of patterns on ancient self-woven carpets, fabrics; rope woven in a special way - ornaments of this type arose as a result of people's activities (as they later began to say - professional), and therefore are called technical. In the countries of the East, various symbols and signs were often woven into the ornament. This type is called symbolic. And the combination of symbols with complex technical elements without a specific plot gave a wide development to the geometric type. This is gothic and Arabic style ornaments.

Vegetable type is considered the most common and ancient. The motives here range from exact copies of flowers, fruits, leaves of plants to their unrecognizable stylization. And here every nation has its favorite and revered plants. Just as on animal ornaments, ancient masters depicted wild animals that they hunt, or those that are sacred to them, as well as those living next to them and therefore especially revered.

At the heart of the fantastic type of ornament are non-existent plants or animals. Ancient Rome, where subjects with objects of theatrical and musical art, luxurious life or military weapons were especially loved, is the birthplace ofsubject ornament. The sky and the stars, the Sun and the Moon are elements of the astral ornaments characteristic of China and Japan. A beautiful ornament of a landscape type was born right there: mountains, rivers, waterfalls, forests and fields are on it. In the Arab countries, a special calligraphic type of ornament, which arose with the advent of the first written language, consisting of letters and fragments of text, was widely developed. All types of ornaments rarely exist in their pure form, more often they intertwine, penetrate and complement each other.

Features of Arabic works of art

Works of art created by the peoples of the countries of the Arab world are distinguished by special spirituality, expressiveness, a subtle sense of beauty and sublime. Arabic patterns and ornaments are unique and original with an amazing variety. It is based on the Muslim religion, which forbids depicting a person, animals, living creatures in general. Therefore, for example, the Arabic ornament rarely includes elements of the fauna, and then in a stylized form. Islamic culture is closer to geometric motifs that stun with a sense of continuity of movement and immerse a person in the world of contemplation, dreams, and the desire to learn the secrets of life.

Arabic ornament is the basis of the plastic creativity of Muslims, which was the art of artistic depiction of words, sayings, aphorisms from the sacred Koran - calligraphy.

Ornament as an art form of the Arabs

Studying patterns and relationships with the society of ornamental art makes it possible to apply everythingprogressive from the past in art today. The Arabic ornament, as the most important component of the subtle and original art of the East, has a special aesthetic content and is the most valuable part of world culture.

Forms amaze with their most complex simplicity and seething calm, they get used to reality and stand as a barrier between the world and man. Arabic ornament reveals the deep inner world of the masters who create it. It seems that they have learned to control their own talent, enriched by experience, in order to reproduce so subtly all the shades of human experiences. In order to fully reveal the conceived motif of the Arabic ornament, the master uses different forms, giving them a new sound with the help of the language of color and light.

The graphic element dominates, and the ornaments of the Arab masters seem voluminous, dynamic. Creatively transforming the entire space, the authors erase the boundaries, turning their work into a dream come true. This is a very important feature that distinguishes Arabic patterns and ornaments from any other.

The law of rhythm in the ornament

Rhythm is a habitual phenomenon for a person. Day and night. Sleep and wakefulness. Therefore, we are waiting for it in works of art: in music and versification, in painting and architecture. Rhythm is order. Violation or lack of rhythm worries or even irritates. It is thanks to the presence of rhythm that we are happy and full of surprise, admiring the beauty of works of art of Arabic ornament on plaster, brick, wood, copper, silver. It seems that the master combined inthe rhythm of the material and pattern of the ornament, emphasizing the beauty and value of the material with the pattern. Different elements of the ornament are subject to a certain rhythm, and in relation to each other they are in rhythm. The master of Arabic ornament is akin to a conductor in an orchestra. Therefore, real works of ornamental art are so harmonious.

Types of Arabic ornaments

To understand where the Arab masters drew their inspiration from, you need to imagine the endless deserts of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula: open, boundless space, cut by winding paths, riverbeds, hills. Before your eyes, the gilding of the sand merges with the bright blue of the sky and rivers, and closer to the water, curly fragrant greenery and unusually bright flowers. Masters adapted and adapted in the ornament everything that had surrounded them for centuries. There are a lot of motives. There are recognizable elements, for example, from ancient culture, and there are so abstract elements that it is almost impossible to recognize the prototype. An important element in the Arabic ornament is the knot. This is rooted in the Muslim religion. In the East, various images of a knot in an ornament have a benevolent meaning for a long life, happiness. It is often used not just for communication, but to transform one type of ornament into another and further into something completely abstract.

Girikhov knot

Girih is a geometric type of ornament. The main elements are shapes: circle, oval, triangle, square, polygons. They are all symbols on which the universe is built. For example, the circle representscenter and movement, the square is associated with order and clarity. From these figures-symbols, Arab craftsmen, by repeatedly interlacing and superimposing one on top of the other, create the most complex, mathematically precisely verified ornament.

And if we consider Arabic ornaments as a whole (in a mosque, for example), then the combination of geometric shapes in space delights. The accuracy of the selection of the ornamental pattern with the shape of the vaults of the galleries and the shape of the windows delights. What an amazing color scheme of the ornament on the ceiling and walls, on the pediments and on the floor! All this separately and together is voluminous due to the play of light and shadow.

Islimi - the path to the divine garden

This Arabic ornament is based on images of an endless spiral with leaves and flowers. It is like a symbol of an uninterrupted path to the Garden of Eden or the idea of the incessant development of a flowering green shoot. The islimi ornament has five forms: braided, simple, forked, almond-shaped and winged. These forms do not exist separately, they complement and fill other motifs of the Arabic ornament, which does not tolerate voids.

Khatai is a simplified islimi. The same stems and branches, but abstract. In Arab countries, it is often used on the facades of houses, when painting jars and in carpet ornaments.

Islamic arabesque

Across the Islamic world, the arabesque is a common type of ornament. They decorate household items, secular buildings, and places of worship. This type of ornament is based on repetitions of fragments in a certainrhythm and does not carry any image. It virtually eliminates the background because the elements fit one into the other.

In the continuous weaving of the pattern, the form with the eternal Arabic hint of infinity disappears. The main elements of the arabesque are parts of plants and weaves, connected in a unique ligature, going to infinity.

Arabic calligraphy

Arabic calligraphy has a special decorative quality. The emergence of the alphabet and writing in general is considered the greatest invention of mankind. Ancient inscriptions on stones from the village of Nabat, which have survived to this day and were made in pre-Islamic times in Arabic, confirm that the Arabs borrowed the alphabet from the neighbors of the Nabats living in the northeast of the Arabian Peninsula. For Arab Muslims, knowledge of the alphabet and the ability to read was consecrated and encouraged by the Qur'an. The Arabic language is, in fact, the language of this sacred book for any Muslim. And like the Koran, it became a unifying factor for the Arab people. It was used for communication and written by educated people from any class with different religious views. This is the true democratic meaning of Arabic writing. And it is natural that he became a tool of creativity. Masters of calligraphy, especially those who wrote using the naskh method (the Koran was written by them), occupied a privileged position in a society close to power. Arabic calligraphy is a noble, sublime and unifying art. Thanks to her, the sacred in the Koran acquired a tangible form. Very often wall mastersornaments, they inscribed Arabic calligraphy in their works in the form of sayings from the sacred scripture: “Praise be to God alone”, “Power belongs to God”; or individual words: "Happiness", "Life", "Eternity".