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Islamic Art and Geometric Design C Michael
Islamic Art and Geometric Design C Michael
Islamic Art and Geometric Design C Michael
An Interdisciplinary Study
of
Glossary
from the Oxford American Dictionary
Arabesque
Introduction
The Islamic Decorative Canon
Since the early years of Islam, the Prophet Muhammads teachings against idolatry were
interpreted to mean that the depiction of humans and animals in art was prohibited.
(Pattern in Islamic Art. http://www.patterninislamicart.com)
Adherence to this strict religious interpretation led to a highly evolved Islamic design
aesthetic. Images derived from plant life (arabesque), geometric patterns and stylized
calligraphy became the canon of what we know as Islamic decorative art. (Pattern in
Islamic Art. http://www.patterninislamicart.com)
Much of the art of Islam, whether in architecture, ceramics, textiles or books, is the art
of decoration-which is to say, of transformation. The aim however, is never merely to
ornament, but rather to transfigure. Essentially, this is a reflection of the Islamic
preoccupation with the transitory nature of being. Taken from The Evolution of
Style/Pattern in Islamic Art. http://www.patterninislamicart.com
Unity
According to the Quran, unity is an underlying principal of Islam, both a doctrine of
faith, spirituality and a blueprint for conducting ones life. As described by Keith
Critchlow in Islamic Patterns, An Analytical and Cosmological Approach, page 6,
Islamic Art.is a means of relating multiplicity to Unity by means of mathematical
forms which are seen, not as mental abstractions, but as reflections of the celestial
archetypes within both the cosmos and the minds and souls of men.
According to Seyyed Hossein Nasr, in the book, Islamic Art and Spirituality, art is the
manifestation of unity upon the plane of multiplicity. The ubiquitous chanting of the
Muslim call to prayer, There is no god but God helps construct the unifying mode of
thought for the faithful. The devout Muslim tiles a mosaic of belief in an infinite repeated
pattern of speech, thought and action.
Titus Burckhardt writes in the book, Sacred Art in East and West, that the complexity of
unity is best described through the geometry of the circle. Mathematicians believe that
the circle is the most beautiful and elegant geometric form, because it is the expression of
justice, through symmetry and balance. It is the symbol of eternity. (Critchlow, page 9)
The circle is the starting point for many patterns in Islamic design. In its simplicity, the
circle is the archetype for the processes of the Universe. (Critchlow, page 7) It is a
complete form, yet has no beginning and no end. Its shape symbolizes the perfect unity of
filled and unfilled space. It is complete and multifaceted. It has many parts within a
whole yet contains a center point that anchors all other dissections of its core.
The circle exhibits several types of symmetry. It has lateral, radiating and reflective
symmetrical properties. The repeated division of space within the circle, can be seen in
many Islamic designs used to decorate mosques, utilitarian objects and in the
construction of shaped calligraphy.
Secondary Curricula
for
SYMMETRY
Symmetry in Laila Lalamis novel, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits
World Literature Competencies
(based on the New Hampshire Curriculum Frameworks)
1. Students will understand that reading literatures from around the world with
understanding and appreciation of commonality and differences is essential for
them to succeed as learners, both in school and throughout their lives, and to
become contributing members of society.
2. Students will understand that interpreting and critically analyzing classic and
contemporary literature leads to knowledge of the genre. The study of World
Literature develops an appreciation of the human experience.
3. Students will understand that in the study of World Literature it is necessary to
use critical thinking skills of analyzing, comparing, categorizing, and classifying,
identifying cause and effect, problem solving, persuading, empathizing,
synthesizing, interpreting, evaluating communicating, and applying.
The Trip, foreshadows the dichotomous psychology of the characters as they confront
two countries, two universes, the infinite, the finite, the sacred and the secular.
Part 1: Before
The Fanatic
Larbi, is the father of Noura, a university student aspiring to study at NYU.
He is an official in the Moroccan Ministry of Education. His wife is a lawyer with
progressive views about women.
Noura befriends Faten, a conservative Islamist student who influences Noura to question
the bourgeois life created by wealth and profane values.
Symmetrical and circular devices in Lalamis storytelling allow the viewer to see
universal themes in the details of the Maghrebi tale.
Larbi is annoyed that he is asked for a professional favor. At the end of the story, it is
Larbi who manipulates events and solicits his own brand of extortion to serve a purpose.
Faten presents herself as righteously pious. She is not above corruption when survival is
at stake. Corruption emerges as a theme contrasted with integrity, seen as a convenient
luxury of the rich and powerful.
It is certainly not baraka, (a blessing from God) but maybe karma that finds Larbi
contemplating his daughters extremism while struggling to acknowledge his own
corruption.
The Mizan, the Islamic scales of balance are used to measure the cosmic symmetry in
Lalamis work. (Pattern in Islamic Art. http://www.patterninislamicart.com)
Lalamis characters are Moroccan yet universal themes are revealed through their
duplicitous actions.
If we pay attention, we will hear Fatens sentiments repeated in Part II. Page 43, No one
is offering me anything. No one gives anything for free.
Lalami creates a pattern of character motifs. They reappear physically and also in
thought and action. They are not regular motifs, like the shapes repeated in zillij tiling
but a progressive motif. They are transfigured paralleling the transitory nature of being.
(The Evolution of Style/Pattern in Islamic Art. http://www.patterninislamicart.com)
Bus Ride
Halima is married to Maati an alcoholic. They have three children.
Through the use of visual metaphor, Lalami paints an Islamic design of light and shadow
cast on a Moroccan landscape.
Page 30, The windows were open and the sun was making tree spots on the floor
Page 52, Stripes of sunlight came through the closed shutters, making a hazy grid on the
bare floor.
It is almost as though Lalamis description of light attempts to levitate Halimas tragic
life to a spiritual realm. Through the interplay of light and shadow on the intricate
stalactite carvings in mosques, the structure is made to appear transcendent. (Nasr) In the
Bus Ride, Halima does not transcend her circumstances, but Lalami shows us that this
mothers spirit is not confined to what is acceptable.
Reflective symmetry is seen in Halimas comparison of her life to that of her employer,
Hanan on page 70. I could have been her, had my luck been different, had I gone to a
real school, had I married someone else. Even though Halima cannot transcend her
fate, she can visualize a transfiguration.
Acceptance
Aziz has made the decision to leave his wife and his country to make a better life in
Spain.
Aziz confronts the void in the infinite pattern of his life. He aligns himself with a
nomadic psychology, being acutely aware of the fragility of existence. (Burckhardt) He
creates a pattern of rhythmic thought that designs his future. We see later that the new
reality he creates limits his pattern making to isolated designs. He is not able to
interweave the old and the new
Halima to a passage from Islamic Art and Spirituality by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, The
stalactites serve the practical function of supporting the roof and also symbolize the
descent of light into the world of material forms. Halima is so charged.
The Odalesque
Faten is unrecognizable as a young prostitute in Madrid. Lalami helps us to see her
instincts for survival as she creates order out of chaos.
We are reminded of her former life in Morocco, as a friend of Nouras at Larbis dinner
table. The following passage is foreshadowed in the dinner conversation from The
Fanatic. Page 133, She began to wonder about the price of all this-----after all, she had
long ago learned that nothing is free.
On page 138, Faten reflects on her former friend, Noura was probably still wearing it.
She was rich; she had the luxury of having faith. But then Faten thought, Noura also had
the luxury of having no faith; shed probably found the hijab too constraining and ended
up taking it off to show off her designer clothes. That was the thing with money. It gave
you choices. Fatens thoughts follow a circular pattern of logic and the sentiment
exhibits reflection symmetry as viewed against her former life in Morocco.
In the end Faten is grateful for the truth. I am reminded of what Larbi says in The
Fanatic when thinking about Nouras newfound religious fervor, on page 35, What if he
lost her to thisthis blindness that she thought was sight? When we know the truth are
we able to see more clearly? The lens through which Faten sees the world is not the same
as it was when she was a student in Morocco. The dogmatic principals of her former life
have given way to the void, not so easily explained or defended. The arabesque nature of
Fatens existence can be compared to the thoughts of Seyyed Hossein Nasr in Islamic Art
and Spirituality. Through the use of the arabesque in its many forms the void enters into
the different facets of Islamic art lifting from the material objects their suffocating
heaviness and enabling the spirit to breathe and expand. Faten seems to be able to lift
her psyche away from the reality of her physical burdens. Nasr goes on to write, The
arabesque through its extension and repetition of forms interlaced with the void, removes
from the eye the possibility of fixing itself in one place and from the mind the possibility
of becoming imprisoned in an particular solidification and crystallization of matter.
Emptiness in Art becomes synonymous with the manifestation of the sacred.
Faten transcends her reality even though she knows her daily fate. She does not succumb
to the illusion that someone else knows better or that she will be taken care of. She
navigates the void by ordering the small elements of her life and finding unity through
self-knowledge. Although physically burdened she is not spiritually imprisoned.
Allusion to her self-knowledge is heard in this passage from page 140, There was a
program on TV about dromedaries, and she watched, eyes half-closed, as the Spanish
voice-over described the mammals common habitat, his resistance to harsh living
conditions, his nomadic patterns, and his many uses, as a beast of burden, for his meat
and milk, and even for his dung, which could be burned for fuel. Faten recognizes
herself in this description.
Homecoming
Aziz has made a life for himself in Spain. Although not the life he envisioned, he can no
longer imagine a life in Casablanca. Memories are often one-dimensional and take on the
design of our choosing. Dreams of his homecoming provide Aziz with a design he
eagerly awaits to color. The truth tells a sober story of a displaced immigrant who doesnt
feel at home in either reality. The colors fade and are replaced with a monochromatic
future for the couple. Aziz finds that he cannot expect his wife, Zohra to adapt to life in
Spain and he can no longer live his former life. The couple once was two halves of a
whole, now they are merely the weak reflection of each others dreams. When Aziz takes
his suitcase to return to Spain, each is left a little lighter by the awareness of the truth.
The Storyteller
The circular tale returns the focus to Murad. His immigration attempt was unsuccessful
and he finds himself in Tangier. He works in a bookstore, a fitting place for someone
with a Batchelors Degree in English. He has lived the better part of his life dreaming of
the future. He wondered if one always had to sacrifice the past for the future, or if it
was something he had done, something peculiar to him, an inability to fill himself with
too much, so that for every new bit of imagined future, he had to forsake a tangible past.
(Page 178). At this moment the notion that his imagination is fixed and not expandable,
is contrary to his final epiphany. He comes to realize that he has his own stories. He
understands his legacy will be to continue the transmission of culture through
storytelling. Titus Burckhardt writes in Sacred Art in East and West, The sense of
rhythm, innate in nomadic peoples and the genius for geometry: these are the two poles
which transposed into the spiritual order, determine all Islamic Art. Nomadic
rhythmicality found its most direct expression in Arab prosody.
Murad realizes his calling to continue the tradition of Arab prosody.
The structure of Lalamis novel comes full circle with Murad. He is the character we
encounter first and last. He finds unity by looking inward. Keith Critchlow writes in
Islamic Patterns, Islams concentration on geometric patterns draws attention away
from the representational world to one of pure form, posed tensions and dynamic
equilibrium, giving structural insight into the workings of the inner self and their
reflection in the universe. Curiously, modern atomic physics has confirmed the essential
mathematical and geometric patterns occurring in Nature; not, however, in the
philosophical sense of displaying the intelligence within and throughout all creation the
starting point of Islamic art but in the purity of essential relationships which lie
beneath the visual surface of our world. The significance from the Islamic standpoint is
that, in the effort to trace origins in creation, the direction is not backwards but
inwards.
Lesson 1
REFLECTION SYMMETRY
Students will create an equilateral triangle motif that will have three lines of reflection
symmetry and will tessellate the plane. Geometric shapes or arabesque forms can be used
as design elements. Through reflecting the image on the line of symmetry, unity of
design is achieved.
Materials:
several small sheets of tracing paper
equilateral triangle pattern page
pencil, eraser
drawing paper
Procedure:
Use a second sheet of tracing paper to trace the original triangle. The
triangle is the motif that will be repeated and reflected in the
completed design. Flip the second tracing over and align it to the
original design. We can now see the mirror image of one side of the
triangle. The pattern matches up along the line of mirror symmetry.
Trace both images onto a third piece of tracing paper.
Continue the process of tracing and flipping along the lines of symmetry, going
beyond the original hexagon, to fill a rectangular piece of paper. The final pattern
will tessellate the plane with the potential to continue to infinity.
Lesson 2
KALEIDOSCOPE
A kaleidoscope is an optical toy consisting of a cylinder with mirrors that allows the
viewer to see a variety of symmetrical images, depending how many mirrors are used,
and what is being reflected.
Students will be constructing a kaleidoscope using 3 mirrors and common household
objects.
The equilateral triangle motif, designed in the Reflective Symmetry lesson, will be used
in the kaleidoscope and reflected to infinity inside the mirror system chamber.
Materials:
1 tall Pringles can
2 plastic covers from a tall Pringles can
3 pieces of mirror about 2 inches wide by 8.75 inches long
masking tape
white paper
pencil, eraser
scissors
colored pencils
foam peanuts
small drill or penknife to make a hole in one plastic cover
Procedure:
1. Remove the metal base from the Pringles can. Wipe out the inside of the can so it
is clean.
2. Drill or cut a small hole in the center of one of the plastic cover.
3. Tape the mirrors together using masking tape, reflective side in as illustrated
below.
4. Trace the equilateral triangle formed by the mirrors on a sheet of white paper.
Draw a floral or geometric design inside the triangle. Imagine each line of the
triangle is the line of symmetry dividing a complete image in half. Link designs
with connecting forms to unify the interior of the triangular drawing space. Pay
attention to the positive and negative space created by the drawn forms.
5. Place the tapped mirrors inside the Pringles can. Center them using packing
peanuts to secure the mirrors inside the cylinder.
6. Attach the plastic cover with the hole onto one end of the Pringles can.
7. Cut the designed triangle shape and glue it to the center of the inside of the second
plastic cap. Place it on the tube.
8. Look through the eyehole and see your design reflect to infinity inside the scope.
9. Decorate the outside of the cylinder as desired.