ARABESQUE, (Fr.). A term which means merely after the Arabian manner; and, so far as etymology is concerned, might therefore be general in its application. In practice, however, it is used to characterize any kind of carved or painted decoration, especially in conjunction with architecture, which is not in close imitation of natural forms, either ani mal or vegetable, but admits of schematic, her aldic, and fantastic devices. It was originally used of the purely geometric ornamentation of Mohammedan architecture. but is equally ap plicable to the decorative work of the Alex andrian Greeks, and especially that of the Romans (Pompeii, Rome, etc.), which was taken as a model at the Renaissance, and has never been surpassed in variety and delicacy. The arabesque of the Mohammedans differed from other forms in entirely excluding the fig ures of animals and men, the representation of which was forbidden by the re ligion, and confining itself to purely geometric shapes and to the foliage. flowers, fruit, and tendrils of plants and trees, curiously and elab orately intertwined. This limitation of the field
of arabesqpe was not observed in Christian art. The Byzantine schools and the Northern barba rians—Celts, Goths, Saxons, Lombards—used the schematic heraldic forms of this style. So did, to a lesser degree, the Romanesque artists. The Gothic style returned to the study of natural forms almost entirely. but the Renais sance. notwithstanding its naturalism, was very partial to the arabesque, imitating in the Fif teenth Century the antique carved friezes and pilasters, and in the Sixteenth Century the painted designs discovered on the walls of the Baths of Titus, the Golden House of Nero, and the imperial palaces on the Palatine. Raphael's arabesques in the Vatican are the most famous and beautiful of these imitations. Further im petus to this type of design was given in the last century by the discoveries at Pompeii and Herculaneum.