History of mediæval art . rds of gold and silver in the treeof precious metal which stood in the audience hall of the caliphMoktadir Billah. Other representations of the figures of men and animals were soentirely of a decorative character that the patterns with which theywere combined were of more important dimensions, as well as moresuccessful in artistic respects. In the relief from Granada, shown 198 MOHAMMEDAN ART. in Fig. 103, the symmetrical arrangement of the forms is very no-ticeable, and the same is the case with the few remaining carvingsof wood, in which single human figures are int
History of mediæval art . rds of gold and silver in the treeof precious metal which stood in the audience hall of the caliphMoktadir Billah. Other representations of the figures of men and animals were soentirely of a decorative character that the patterns with which theywere combined were of more important dimensions, as well as moresuccessful in artistic respects. In the relief from Granada, shown 198 MOHAMMEDAN ART. in Fig. 103, the symmetrical arrangement of the forms is very no-ticeable, and the same is the case with the few remaining carvingsof wood, in which single human figures are introduced into ara-besques in combination with musical instruments, vessels, and hunt-ing accoutrements. The conventional treatment of animal forms in the textile worksof the Moslems, which were so highly prized throughout Europe,was of decisive influence in the determination of the heraldic de-vices of the Middle Ages. The illustrations of manuscripts wereoften of a more naturalistic style (compare Fig. 104), but true mon-. Fig. 104.—Miniature in a Manuscript of Ibn Zafer, of Sicily, Library of the Escurial. umental paintings were almost altogether unknown. The artists inmosaic who had been invited from Constantinople occasionally ex-ceeded the limits of merely decorative representations, but theirworks were entirely Byzantine, as were also the imitations of themby Arabian hands, which were, however, rare, the fesifisa mosaics ofthe Arabs usually being limited to floral patterns. When Moham-medan painters attained to an individual celebrity this was com-monly due to their illuminations, as is evident from the accounts ofthe artists Kassir and Ibn Aziz, who, in the eleventh century, wereemployed by the bibliophile Bazuri, vizier of the court of the caliphMostansir. The mural paintings which they are said to have exe- SCULPTURE. J99 cuted in competition, representing the figure of Kassir going intothe wall, and that of Ibn Aziz coming out from it, should rather beconsidered as
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