Line

The stylization and elaborate patterns found in medieval art reduces visual perception to constructs of pattern in line, surface elaboration and flattened space. The Medieval portrayal of the world was successful in representing an original, abstract and stylized visual language. Repetition and pattern were recurring motifs in medieval ornamental art, these patterns and geometric constructs and forms, represent ideas and aesthetic tendencies of the culture rather than any literal description of its people.

This transcendent art is not based on sense perception but rather on an internal aesthetic visual language and style. Thus realism and space are sacrificed for ornamentation and pattern. Three-dimensionality is replaced with decorative surfaces, which are both flat and extremely intricate.

In terms of line, curving vine-like lines are predominant. The use of organic, curving, thick lines is common in the ornamentation of sculpture, ceramic works and metallic jewelry. Lines curve, twist, spiral and wind to generate complex geometrical patterns through repetition and superimposition. Many of the patterns are formed of a line in the shape of a continuous stem, throwing off leaves on the outer side, and terminating in a flower. This visual element of Curving Vegetation and Winding Vines enabled artists to use nonrepresentational language to express a fascination with nature, at a time when nature was seen as a winding intricate and mysteriously complex labyrinth.

In some sense, medieval art in its heavy ornamentation and intrinsic two-dimensionality along with its reliance on geometric repetition is similar to oriental Islamic art. However, medieval art develops a very unique visual language unlike any before it. Its lines twist and turn to provide us with a sort of sense mystery, they curve and undulate to capture the viewer’s gaze, in an almost trance like manner as the intricate forms fixate the gaze and the mind into a transcendental visual meditation.

Carol Hourani