| Ellissa Collier - Post-Baccalaureate Certificate Program | |
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Materials and Process
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Artist's Narrative I created this pattern using a square lattice with emphasis on the diamond shapes rather than the interlocking circles. There is reflective symmetry along horizontal and vertical axis points. The border pattern comes from a page from the Koran at the Mosque of the Sultan Barquq (14th c.), illustrated in Arabic Art in Color. |
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Teacher's Comment The field pattern here is also created by overlapping circles aligned on a square grid. But the pattern is contained within a border. Without the border, there is a sense that the pattern could go on forever; within the border, the pattern is (literally) contained. Every such finite pattern, however, implies infinity. Many patterns in Islamic art seem to express the paradox of finiteness and infinity as a visual theme. The square format adopted for this practicum is typical of Mamluk art in Egypt in the 14th century; it was also a favored format of the Almoravids in Spain and North Africa. Artists who worked for Mamluks and Almoravids rulers also enjoyed playing with symmetries of color in overlapping and inersecting circles. |
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