Patterns that cover surfaces

This lesson asks you to explain how elements and principles of design are used to communicate meaning in your own and others' art work. The museum offers Islamic geometric patterns and the arabesque, as its records describe them. The records do not discuss colour or texture; your class can look at those in the works themselves. ¹

The expectation asks how design carries meaning. Look at a repeating pattern and follow one shape in it: where does it start, where does it repeat, and what fills the space around it?

Picture a line of Arabic writing on a wall. The Encyclopaedia of Islam, a big reference book, says that in writing the arabesque, the pattern of leaves and stalks, may form a background to the calligraphy, letters may end in arabesques, or letters and arabesque may be interwoven. ² It also says the arabesque can be combined with every kind of geometric decoration, such as geometric patterns. ²

A wall has writing on it, and behind the writing there is a pattern of leaves. Does the leaf pattern make the writing easier to read or harder to read, and why?

• Arabesque: leaves and stalks, and how the pattern meets writing and geometric decoration.
• Islamic geometric patterns: a short record about stars, polygons and grids.
• Floriated Kufic: a style of writing whose letter ends and uprights are decorated with leaves, stems and blossoms.

Read about geometric patterns and then about the arabesque. Draw one shape and repeat it until it covers a sheet of paper, then describe what the repeating did to the surface.