History of art . atCairo, when, after the end of theconquest, the imagination of theArabs was less tense and had theleisure to become complicated andthe desire to become subtler. It tookon a far rarer quality when the four-teenth century had fixed its law ofdecoration. And this progressivepassage from the living line to theî^ïkfir/v^1 ideographic line, from the ideographicP^^/^^iEl ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ geometric line, sharply^* defines the spiritual direction of this art. When the regular polygon madeits appearance in the répertoire ofornament, the Arab geometrists triedto deduce from it general
History of art . atCairo, when, after the end of theconquest, the imagination of theArabs was less tense and had theleisure to become complicated andthe desire to become subtler. It tookon a far rarer quality when the four-teenth century had fixed its law ofdecoration. And this progressivepassage from the living line to theî^ïkfir/v^1 ideographic line, from the ideographicP^^/^^iEl ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ geometric line, sharply^* defines the spiritual direction of this art. When the regular polygon madeits appearance in the répertoire ofornament, the Arab geometrists triedto deduce from it general principleswhich would permit them to extendthe system of the polygon to thewhole of decoration. Arab art, fromthat time on, became an exactscience^ and allowed the reverie ofthe m^^stic to be inclosed in the hardlanguage of perfectly bare abstraction. Born of the desert, where there are no forms, wherespace alone reigns and has neither beginning nor end,Arabian spirituality found its supreme expression in the. Mosque of the Al- jaferia, decorative detail. (Museum of Saragossa.) ^ A formula drew from the polygon and brought back to it all the geo-metrical motifs of decoration. ISLAM 243 arabesque which also has neither beginning nor eye cannot come to rest on it. It is Hke thosevoices of the silence that we hear and follow in theirinterminable round when we listen only to ourselves,and when our feelings and ideas are enmeshed con-fusedly in a kind of languid pleasure which we experi-
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectart, bookyear1921
