The Alhambra and The Alcazar (Spain)
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
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| Border | Border |
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| Border Patterns | Border used above a tiling |
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| Border on the inside of an arch | Border on the inside of an arch |
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 |
