Arabesque
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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An element of Islamic art usually found decorating the walls of mosques, the arabesque is an elaborative application of repeating geometric forms that often echo the forms of plants and animals. The choice of which geometric forms are to be used and how they are to be formatted is based upon the Islamic view of the world. To Muslims, these forms, taken together, constitute an infinite pattern that extends beyond the visible material world. To many in the Islamic world, they in fact symbolize the infinite, and therefore uncentralized, nature of the creation of the one God (Allah). Furthermore, the Islamic Arabesque artist conveys a definite spirituality without the iconography of Christian art.
Metaphorical usage
Example (meaning: sprawling):
- "The Hollywood Hallucination introduces Parker Tyler’s critical arabesques, elaborated in his later books, concerning Mae West, Mickey Mouse, the Good Villain and the Bad Hero"
Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque
There has been some debate over the meaning of Poe's terms "Grotesque" and "Arabesque" in his short story collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. Both terms refer to a type of art used to decorate walls. These arts styles are known for their complex nature. Poe may have been using them as subdivisions of Gothic art or Gothic architecture in attempt to establish similar subdivisions in Gothic fiction.
It has been theorized the the "grotesque" stories are those where the character becomes a caricature or satire, as in "The Man That Was Used Up." The "arabesque" stories focus on a single aspect of a character, often psychological, such as "The Fall of the House of Usher."
From Il Giornale Nuovo
- "Not quite a year ago, further to a post here about the grotesque in art, Marly asked if I might also write something similar about the arabesque. This idea rested on a cold back-burner until a couple of weeks ago, when I acquired a booklet entitled Some Main Streams and Tributaries in European Ornament from 1500 to 1750 by Peter Ward-Jackson, in which are reprinted some articles that had first been published in a 1967 issue of The Victoria and Albert Museum Bulletin. One of these articles was specifically concerned with the arabesque, and is my source for the images (and for most of the information) below." --Il Giornale Nuovo, June 2007
