page_title: Islamic art
section_title: Tiling
hierarchical_section_title: Islamic art / Ceramics / Tiling
caption_attribution_description: English: Herat's Friday Mosque
context_page_description: Islamic art encompasses the visual arts produced in the Islamic world. Islamic art is difficult to characterize because it covers a wide range of lands, periods, and genres, including Islamic architecture, Islamic calligraphy, Islamic miniature, Islamic glass, Islamic pottery, and textile arts such as carpets and embroidery.
  It comprises both religious and secular art forms. Religious art is represented by calligraphy, architecture and furnishings of religious buildings, such as mosque fittings, woodwork and carpets. Secular art also flourished in the Islamic world, although some of its elements were criticized by religious scholars.
  Early development of Islamic art was influenced by Roman art, Early Christian art, and Sassanian art, with later influences from Central Asian nomadic traditions. Chinese art had a formative influence on Islamic painting, pottery, and textiles. Though the concept of "Islamic art" has been criticised by some modern art historians as an illusory Eurocentric construct,
context_section_description: The earliest grand Islamic buildings, like the Dome of the Rock, in Jerusalem had interior walls decorated with mosaics in the Byzantine style, but without human figures.  From the 9th century onwards the distinctive Islamic tradition of glazed and brightly coloured tiling for interior and exterior walls and domes developed.  Some earlier schemes create designs using mixtures of tiles each of a single colour that are either cut to shape or are small and of a few shapes, used to create abstract geometric patterns.  Later large painted schemes use tiles painted before firing with a part of the scheme – a technique requiring confidence in the consistent results of firing.
  Some elements, especially the letters of inscriptions, may be moulded in three-dimensional relief, and in especially in Persia certain tiles in a design may have figurative painting of animals or single human figures.  These were often part of designs mostly made up of tiles in plain colours but with larger fully painted tiles at intervals.  The larger tiles are often shaped as eight-pointed stars, and may show animals or a human head or bust, or plant or other motifs.  The geometric patterns, such as modern North African zellige work, made of small tiles each of a single colour but different and regular shapes, are often referred to as "mosaic", which is not strictly correct.
  The Mughals made much less use of tiling, preferring (and being able to afford) "parchin kari", a type of pietra dura decoration from inlaid panels of semi-precious stones, with jewels in some cases.  This can be seen at the Taj Mahal, Agra Fort and other imperial commissions.  The motifs are usually floral, in a simpler and more realistic style than Persian or Turkish work, relating to plants in Mughal miniatures.
caption: Tiled exterior of the Friday Mosque of Herat, Afghanistan
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