Difference between revisions of "The Alhambra and The Alcazar (Spain)"
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Revision as of 19:43, 22 September 2009
The Palaces
The Alhambra and Reales Alcázeres are palaces in Spain dating to the 14th century. The rulers who had these building constructed were Moors and hence Moslims. Their art consists to a large degree of geometric designs.
The Reales Alcázeres is also known as Alcázar of Seville. This royal palace was built in the 1360s. The Alcazar is listed as a Unesco World heritage Site.
The Alhambra dates from the same time period. Like the Alcazar, the Alhambra was also originally built as a fortress, and later used as a palace. The Alhambra is also listed as a Unesco World heritage Site.
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| The Palace as seen from the yard | Pillars |
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| Palace Window | Wall with decorations |
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| Carvings |
Rozettes
There are many examples of rozettes. Sometimes the rosette shows up as a seperate tile. Other times we can lift a patetrn from a larger border or tiling. The most common rozettes in these palaces are ones with no reflectional symmetry. Quite a few of the rozette are created with ribbons showing under- and over-crossings. Any ribbon work like that usually leads to what we call a purely cyclic pattern. The only symmetries present are rotational symmetries.
Some of the panels on a wall may be decorated with one pattern. Such larger panels often have just 2 fold rotational symmetry, even though smaller components may have more symmetry than that.
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In close-up we see some of the individual smaller rozettes. The most common rotational symmetries are of degree 4 and 8. An ocassional design with no symmetries is possible.
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Border Patterns
Border patterns are quite interesting, and they appear as borders to the larger tilings, but they also appear on some of the benches as decoration. Note for instance the borders decorating the back and the bottom part of this seating area:
This bench - outside on the grounds - shows a tiling across the front of the seat:
This bench shows three different border patterns on the back of the seat and the pattern on the front also appears as a full tessellation on some walls.
Below are several more examples of border patterns:
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Wallpaper Patterns
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| Carved tiling | Tiling | Tiling |
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| A tiling with 3-fold rotations | A mosaic tile | A hexagonal Pattern |
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| Tiling | Tiling | A semi-regular Tessellation |
