Talk:Tracery

message: I removed this section: the scholarly sources I consulted all define tracery as a peculiar development of Gothic architecture. While the Encyclopaedia of Islam, second edition, uses the term "tracery" occasionally, it has no such entry, and the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Three, is entirely lacking any mention of it. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 22:12, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: This is true to a great degree however there are those scholars who have said plainly that gothic architecture is strongly derived from Islamic architecture.  And on the point of tracery the fact is :that the earliest tracery in Europe is found on Islamic monuments.   They may not have called it tracery but the point is that from an architectural and artistic perspective they are the same :thing.   And if these scholars of architecture don't see fit to acknowledge these facts then it is most likely due to a bias against admitting any influence from Islamic culture.   For example:
File:Puerta_capillas_anacabadas.JPG|Tracery Arches in Batalha_Monastery
File:Aljaferia_27.JPG|Complex Arch from Aljafer%C3%ADa
 :I need to find the book written by an English scholar from a few hundred years back who said that much of gothic originated with the muslims.Big-dynamo (talk) 00:37, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The typical forms of Gothic tracery derive from the evolution of window mullions associated with the shift from plate to bar tracery - part of the general aesthetic and technical developments we now characterise as the transition from 'High' to 'Rayonnant' gothic. Even when applied as blind tracery or in microarchitecture, the origins of these forms in fenestration is fundamental and generally recognised. By contrast, the Islamic decorative forms you cite are all derived from  "surface" decoration - typically used since the early days of the Abassid Caliphate to embellish soffits and domes. Even the fractal arch forms so popular with the Umayyads in Spain derive mainly from muqarnas - so again a form of surface decoration. In other words, from an architectural and artistic perspective the features you mention are NOT the same thing as tracery. Islamic surface decoration has much in common with the Romanesque forms of surface decoration but again this is quite different to Gothic tracery. Also, I would be cautious of relying too much on examples from Spain and Portugal. For all its richness, Iberian gothic never had much influence on the rest of the continent, which tended to respond more to developments in the Ile de France. StuartLondon (talk) 08:38, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I know this is the point of view of "the experts" but I believe that much of this is a bit biased.   It is a known fact that in Spain much of the Christian architecture borrowed directly from the Muslims including the Muslims use of multilobed arches and carvings in their Mosques and other buildings, along with pointed arches which originated in the East for example Mesopotamia and Persia.    The Muslims and the Persians and Indians were the ones at that time moving the mathematics forward to the point where such structures and decorative motifs became possible using advanced geometric techniques.  But of course modern European scholars will admit the Muslim mathematical influence but omit the architectural influence.    Not to mention that much of what you call Gothic actually originated in the cathedrals of Armenia hundreds of years earlier, which was later combined with decorative elements of Muslims and Asians.  The Muslims did not call it tracery because they did not speak English.  The term generally used to refer to the tradition of piercing window openings with delicate openwork is called Mashrabiya in Arabic.  But I do concede that most mainstream scholarship is not going to admit to the things that I posted hence violating Wiki rules for citations.  And also note the much of the "tracery" styles seen in Gothic are found in the complex interlaced tiers of arches in the Great Mosque of Cordoba which are structural elements used to support high openings in a structure, whether it be for a window a wall or interior of a building and derives from the Roman use of such elements in things like aqueducts.
file:Mezquita_Cordoba.jpg| Great mosque of Cordoba built in 10th century.  Note the tracery in the windows using Islamic Geometric Motifs.
file:Mosque_cordoba_mihrab_background.jpg|Note the compound multilobed arches presaging those seen in later Gothic works. 
file:Detalle_de_los_arcos_del_mihrab.JPG|More Islamic architecture
File:La_Aljafería_-_Celosía_02.JPG|Openwork in Islamic Windows from Aljaferia in Spain
File:Ani_Inside_Cathedral.JPG|Early gothic architecture from Ani Cathedral in Armenia
File:AniCathedral.JPG|Outside Shot of Ani Cathedral
File:Khajuraho.JPG|Indian sculptural treatments from Khajuraho temple telling religious stories on the surface of the temple)
Big-dynamo (talk) 13:23, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Islamic tracery?