Arabesque
Kerr Houston
Related Terms:
- Kufic (calligraphic style of Arabic script)
- Qur’an (the holy book of Islam)
- tadhhib (illumination)
Worksheet:
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Related Khamseen Videos:
Heba Mostafa, “Dome of the Rock: Original Mosaics,” Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, published 28 August 2020.
Ünver Rüstem, “Nuruosmaniye Mosque and the Ottoman Baroque,” Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, published 12 October 2020.
References:
“Arabesque.” Encyclopedia Britannica, January 12, 2016. Accessed 11 August 2021. 
Burckhardt, Titus. Art of Islam: Language and Meaning. Commemorative Edition. Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom, 2009.
Canby, Sheila R. Islamic Art in Detail. London: The British Museum Press, 2005.
Grabar, Oleg. The Mediation of Ornament. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992.
Kühnel, Ernst. The Arabesque: Meaning and Transformation of an Ornament. Translated by Richard Ettinghausen. Graz: Verlag für Sammler, 1977.
Necipoğlu, Gülru, and Alina Alexandra Payne, eds. Histories of Ornament: From Global to Local. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016.
Riegl, Alois. Stilfragen: Grundlegungen zu einer Geschichte der Ornamentik. Berlin: Verlag von Georg Siemens, 1893.
Citation:
Kerr Houston, “Arabesque,” Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, published 3 September 2021.
Kerr Houston is a professor of art history, theory and criticism at the Maryland Institute College of Art, where he has taught since 2002. His scholarship focuses primarily on Italian Renaissance visual culture and contemporary art and art criticism, but he also teaches courses on Islamic art and architecture and the history of aesthetics. He is the author of two books—An Introduction to Art Criticism and The Place of the Viewer: The Embodied Beholder in the History of Art, 1764-1968—and numerous articles. He also served as the editor of Art Inquiries from 2017 to 2020.