Pattern, geometry and Islamic art
Art & Design · Key Stage 2 · The School
Building from a circle
Almost every Islamic geometric pattern starts with a circle divided evenly — into 6, 8, 10 or 12. Draw a circle, keep the compass at the same setting, and step it around the edge: it divides into six exactly. Join those points and the whole family of six-fold patterns opens up. No measuring, no guessing — just construction.
Tessellation
Shapes TESSELLATE when they fit together with no gaps and no overlaps. Squares, triangles and hexagons do this on their own; most other shapes need a partner. Craftsmen in Córdoba, Cairo, Isfahan and Fez worked out these systems by hand centuries before anyone wrote the mathematics down.
Why this tradition
In much Islamic religious art, makers turned away from depicting living creatures and put their skill into geometry, plant forms (ARABESQUE) and calligraphy instead. The result is not a limitation — it is one of the most sophisticated ornamental systems ever developed, and it spread into European design through Spain and Sicily.
Draw a circle with a compass. Without changing the radius, put the point anywhere on the circumference and mark an arc; move to that mark and repeat, all the way round. You get exactly six points — this always works, and it is why six-fold pattern is everywhere in Islamic art. Join them for a hexagon, join alternate ones for two triangles, and keep the construction lines: the geometry is the design.