The Muslims have produced some most beautiful interior decoration in the form of wood-carving. In Morocco more es pecially, the inner courtyards of the houses in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries were ornamented throughout with corbelled pent houses, friezes, lintels, and mural facings in carved wood. The carving is not very deep; it is a bas-relief, with sometimes an inter mediate plane between the foundation and the most salient parts. The decorative motifs are floral twines composed of two Jranched palm-leaves, interspersed with conches and pineapples. There are also inscriptions in Arabic characters artistically inter twined with the floral elements. The depth of the hollows is from 3 to 4 centimetres. Very often, however, especially in more modern buildings, the wood has been simply engraved on the surface, so as to accentuate the painting a little more heavily.
In practice these different methods of decoration are often combined. So in doors or very elaborate ceilings in wood mosaic, the boards may be carved with interlaced palm-leaves. The panels of which inlaid ceilings are composed are not always ornamented with mosaic ; many of them are merely engraved with rectilinear geometrical designs. Again, partitions of turned wood are frequently embellished with baguettes forming com binations or even inscriptions in stylized Cufic characters.
It should be added that all these methods of woodworking have also been applied to objects not directly concerned with archi tecture, such as mihrabs (niches indicating the direction of Mecca in mosques), and in particular to some minbars (pulpits).
At the present day the native woodwork is not so excellent as it used to be; but highly-skilled joiners, carpenters, and wood carvers are still to be met with in Morocco. Marshal Lyautey, while he was administrator attached to Sultan Mulay Yussef, helped to preserve these traditions of craftsmanship. Among the best-known examples are : At Cairo, the rich collections of the museum of Arab art, several doors and minbars of mosques, lids of tombs, etc.; at Kairuan (Tunis), the minbar (9th century) and the maqsura (I 1 th century) of the Sidi-Okba mosque; at Algiers, the minbar of the chief mosque (11th century) ; at Fez, the splendid decorations in the inner courtyards of the Medersas of Buanania, El Attarin, El Mesbahiya, Es Sahrij (14th century), and Esh Sharrabin (16th century) ; at Marrakesh, the minbar of the mosque of El Kutubia, the wall-facings and friezes of the Ben-Yussef Medersa (16th century), and the stalactite vault of the mausoleum of the Saadian princes (16th century).
essentially religious. The carved wooden images are mostly statuettes of gods and goddesses and masks for ritual dances. Drinking-cups, seats, head-rests, etc., are also met with. Though long regarded as purely barbarous, in recent years negro art has attracted the attention of a large number of enthusiastic collectors, who recognize in it not merely an unusual and individual charac ter, but qualities of construction, synthesis, and even frequently expression, together with a striking decorative power and delicacy of ornament in objects of daily use. Few of the examples that have reached us are of any great age, the oldest dating back only some two or three centuries. According to the closest students, however, they follow for the most part traditional types the canons of which were established in very remote times. One of the features of the human effigies is the intentional smallness of the lower limbs. Some say that this deformity is intended to represent the primitive inhabitants of Africa, the Pygmies or Negrillos, who are supposed to have been deified by the negroes.
Roughly, the chief centres of negro art are : Benin, where local traditions have mingled with Portuguese influences dating from the 14th and i 5th centuries, with engaging results; the Ogowe, in the north of Gaboon, where wooden fetishes sheathed in copper plating are the chief feature, the human form being completely conventionalized into a geometrical figure ; Dahomey, where the human figures are much more realistic; the Congo, where there are statuettes covering a fairly wide range of types, and also, in the Kasai basin, objects of daily use which are remarkable both in form and in ornamentation—goblets, drinking-cups, musical instruments, chairs, etc.
Guinea, the Oil rivers, the Sudan, the Ivory coast, the Gold coast, Dahomey, Liberia, the Cameroons, Gaboon, etc., have produced statues and masks displaying the most painstaking work manship. Wood-carving is also found in Loango and Angola. The finest collections of negro art are in the British museum, the Trocadero museum at Paris, the Tervueren museum near Brussels, and various museums in Germany. (J. GAL.) Muslim Art: See S. Lane-Poole, The Art of the Saracens in Egypt (i886) ; M. Herz, Catalogue of the National Museum at Cairo (1896) ; H. Saladin, Manuel d'Art Musulman; vol. 1; L'Architecture (19°7) ; G. Migeon, Manuel d'Art Musulman; vol. .r.r.; Les Arts Plastiques et Industriels (1907) ; G. Margais, La Chaire de la Grande Mosquee d'Alger (1921) and Manuel d'Art Musulman (2 vols., 1926) ; J. Gallotti, Le Jardin et la Maison Arabes au Maroc (1926).