Moorish Designs and Escher Patterns

 

I had been to the Alhambra twice before, and what I mostly remembered was being unable to stop long enough to focus (one reason I don’t always suggest guided tours) and being unable to see much beyond the heads of taller people surrounding me.   This trip, however, in early Feburary, sunny and cool, was blessed with relatively few fellow travelers.  In fact, it was downright empty, which suited us just fine.  Time to meander, time to look, time to absorb, with no guide to hurry us along and no crowds.  I highly recommend Spain in winter for time to study historic buildings.

The variety of decorative patterns in the Alhambra is astounding and the ones that fascinated me most are the tessellations. 

Tessellation is a mathematical term for a pattern made up of repeating shapes that fit together perfectly on a plane (geometric, not airborn) , leaving no empty spaces.  They can be rotated or reflected. Repetitions form larger patterns.

They made me think of M.C. Escher drawings – patterns that repeat or gently morph into changed patterns that repeat.   And sure enough, Escher was here, in Granada, back in   1922 and again in 1936, and took home drawings from which he struck out and designed his own original works.

The original designs, in the Alhambra, repeat themselves in tile and wood, in plasterwork, and even in light filtering through filigreed windows.   Your eye can follow the pattern and see one shape or another, depending on how you look at it, and where you focus.

The patterns also bring to mind American patchwork quilts, and some of them are quite similar.  What’s the connection?   Where did frontier women learn about Moorish patterns?  Patchwork quilts are made of blocks broken into squares, rectangles, diamonds, triangles– a very similar geometry.

Other designs weave strands together in knotted patterns that bring to mind Celtic knots and interweaves, and ornate letters in Irish manuscripts, especially the Book of Kells.  Did St. Brendan the navigator stop off in Andalucia on one of his voyages?   Don’t know, but it seems as if, like the patterns, it’s all connected.