What is the meaning of the word "arabesque"? In life, we often come across this concept. This word is often used in accordance with its traditional characteristics, but is used as a figure of speech, as a common noun or in a figurative sense, when it means something cunningly intertwined or intricately ornate, in another version it is very crushed and mixed or very openwork , easy.

What is an arabesque?

The word is of Italian origin. In translation, the term arabesque - arabesco - means "Arabic". However, this ornamental style is used in cultures of different countries and in different types of art. There is no exact and unified definition of an arabesque. We are faced with a completely different use of the concept, it would seem. There are several meanings of what an arabesque is.

Initially, a type of oriental (Arabic) ornament was called an arabesque. In the future, this term began to be used as the name of a certain type of musical piece.

There is another way to use the word - in the masculine gender. What is "arabesque" in this case? In this case, we are talking about a dance movement or a type of dance.

Let's look at each use case of the concept separately.

Arabic pattern in Europe

It is this use of the term that is really connected with its Arabic meaning, since it is a type of ornament that arose in the medieval era in the culture of nomadic Arabs.

What is an arabesque in art? Initially, the structure of the pattern included both geometric and floral motifs, but later only geometric motifs began to be included.

At a later time, text components began to be introduced into the floral pattern. That is why such a concept as "Arabic script" arose - a type of writing whimsically ornate, similar to an arabesque in appearance.

In the heyday of the Middle Ages, the "arabesque" ornament was used to design handwritten books, and in Byzantium and Italy - in majolica and engraving. At this stage in the development of the arabesque, it carried, first of all, a symbolic meaning and was the main element of architectural structures.

The most popular type of ornament "arabesque" became in the Renaissance. Thanks to Giovanni da Udine, the pattern becomes the basis and connecting thread of the semantic component of fresco paintings and decorative and symbolic elements in architecture.

In the era of classicism, the "arabesque" ornament received the appointment of an independent decorative element, abstracted from the semantic component.

Arabic pattern in the countries of the Muslim world

In the Arab world, over time, the arabesque ornament became a whole science that was in the service of the church. After all, Arabic arabesque patterns served as a connecting thread between Heaven - the abode of God and Paradise - and Man as a representative of the Earthly House. If you think about it, then the Underworld, which, according to Muslims, consists of two parts: the grave as the threshold of Paradise or Hell and Hell itself. Thus, it is possible to express the version that the Muslim arabesque can be the image of the "World Tree". Arabesque ornaments can completely cover the walls of the mosque. In the interweaving of their elements, you will never find animals, birds, fish, humans and other living beings, since no one can compete with God - their creator.

Arabesque in the arts and crafts of the East

There is also a non-religious way of using the arabesque ornament in Eastern cultures. One of the most common is the Arabic patterned carpet. In this case, the creation of a pattern implies greater freedom of creativity: images of animals and people can be used as elements, weaving them into a ligature of stems, petals and leaves.

On the basis of the Arabic traditional ornament in the art of carpet weaving, a special direction emerged - Islami - a decorative ornament consisting only of bindweed and spiral elements. In addition, six additional types of Islami are distinguished: "shekasti" - with open ornaments; "bandi" or "vagire" - the elements of the pattern are repeated both horizontally and vertically, and intertwined with each other; "dakhane azhdar", whose arabesques resemble the mouth of a dragon; "toranjdar", in it, along with traditional patterns, such an element as a medallion is used; "lochak-toranj", where a composition of medallions in triangles is placed in the corners of the carpet; "mari" - with spiral-shaped arabesques.

Arabesques in the "bandy" style also have a number of subspecies: "islimi" - in the form of fastened arabesques; "pichak" - in the form of connected weaves; "shekaste" - in the form of untied arabesques; "katibei" - in the form of an associated inscription; "varamin"; "caleb-hashti" in the form of connected square frames; "derakhti" - in the form of intertwining trees; "sarvi" - the main element - cypress; "adamaki" - in the form of a pattern of human figures; "bakhtiyari"; "khushe-anguri" from intertwined bunches of grapes; "shahae gavazne kheyvandar" from linked figurines of deer; "hatame shirazi", reminiscent of inlays; "dastegul" from intertwined bouquets.

In addition to creating unique carpet products, the arabesque motif is used to create models of clothes, dishes, interiors, and even in landscape design.

Pattern creation technology

When creating an "arabesque" ornament, an ideal mathematical calculation is required, which is used to form absolutely accurate compositional elements of its elements and their alternation in an ornamental chain. The elements of the pattern are very complex in composition, often fit into each other. At the same time, it is also necessary to use mathematical knowledge, because the elements of arabesques are difficult to combine variants of various geometric shapes - circles, ovals, rectangles, hexagons and octagons, trapezoids, triangles, rhombuses, etc. Moreover, each type of element has its own color. With such a mathematical pattern, the background is never used for it.

Musical composition

In music, the term "arabesque" was first introduced in relation to a proper name for his work by the famous composer Robert Schumann. Later, the concept of "arabesque" began to be applied to a certain genre of instrumental music, as a rule, a work of small size, but very diverse, light, with an openwork interweaving of elements, rhythms, intonations, tempo, fragments of a melody. The intertwining melody of the arabesque was used in the work of the amazing French impressionist and symbolist composer Claude Debussy. Of the domestic composers, Alexandra Lyadova turned to this genre.

dance movement

What is "arabesque" in dance art? The arabesque, or rather the arabesque, is one of the main movements in classical choreography. In the classification of Agrippina Yakovlevna Vaganova, we meet four types of arabesque, and the Italian choreographer Enrico Cecchetti has five. These movements have a similar setting of the body, head, but differ in the position of the raised and retracted arms and legs.

From classical choreography, the modified arabesque was transferred to sports ballroom dancing and figure skating. It has a fairly long tradition of application in Indian belly dance.

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"ARABESCO",

collection of articles and stories by Gogol. Full name: "Arabesques. Various works of N. Gogol ”(St. Petersburg, 1835). Censorship permission of the collection - November 10, 1834 Publication - January 20-22, 1835 A. consisted of two parts. The 1st part included: "Sculpture, painting and music"; "On the Middle Ages"; "Chapter from a historical novel"; "On the Teaching of World History"; "Portrait"; "A look at the compilation of Little Russia"; "A few words about Pushkin"; "On the architecture of the present time"; "Al-Mamun". The 2nd part included: "Life"; "Schlozer, Miller and Herder"; "Nevsky Avenue"; "On Little Russian Songs"; "Thoughts on Geography"; "The last day of Pompeii"; "Prisoner"; "On the movement of peoples at the end of the 5th century"; "Diary of a Madman".

"Arabesques" are Arabic patterns, which are a combination of dissimilar elements. The Gogol collection brought together articles on history, geography, literature and art, as well as St. Petersburg stories. In the preface to A. Gogol, he emphasized: “This collection consists of plays written by me in different eras of my life. I didn't write them to order. They spoke from the heart, and I chose as the subject only that which struck me greatly. Between them, readers will no doubt find many young ones. I confess that I might not have admitted some plays to this collection at all if I had published it a year earlier, when I was more strict with my old works. But instead of sternly judging your past, it is much better to be inexorable to your present pursuits. It seems as unfair to destroy what we have written before, as to forget the bygone days of our youth. Moreover, if an essay contains two or three truths that have not yet been said, then the author has no right to hide it from the reader, and for two or three correct thoughts one can forgive the imperfection of the whole.

For the first time Gogol mentioned A. in letters to M.P. Pogodin dated November 2 and December 14, 1834: “... I’m terribly busy ... I’m printing some things!” and “I print all sorts of things. All the writings and passages and thoughts that sometimes occupied me. Between them there are historical, already known and unknown. - I ask only you to look at them indulgently. They have a lot of young people."

In early January 1835, Gogol sent a preface to A. A. S. Pushkin: “I am sending you a preface. Do me a favor, look through and if anything, then correct and change immediately with ink. After all, as far as you know, I have not yet written serious prefaces, and therefore I am completely inexperienced in this matter. It is not known whether Pushkin made any corrections to the text of his younger brother in literature.

On January 22, 1835, Gogol sent a copy to A. A. S. Pushkin, noting in a letter: “Subtract ... and do yourself a favor, take a pencil in your pens and do not stop indignation at the sight of mistakes, but the same hour of them all on the face. - I need it very much". On the same day, copies of A. were sent to M. P. Pogodin and M. A. Maksimovich. Gogol wrote to M.P. Pogodin: “I send you all my stuff. Stroke her and pat her: there is a lot of childishness in her, and I quickly tried to throw her out into the light, in order to throw everything old out of my office at the same time, and, shaking myself off, start a new life. Express your opinion on historical articles in some magazine. Better and more decent, I think, in an enlightenment magazine. Your word will help me. Because I also seem to have some kind of scientific enemies. But fuck their mother!” Gogol informed M.A. Maksimovich: “I am sending you a confusion, a mixture of everything, porridge, in which there is butter, judge for yourself.”

V. G. Belinsky, in his article “On the Russian story and the stories of Mr. Gogol” (1835), did not appreciate A.’s articles on history: “I don’t understand how you can compromise your literary name so thoughtlessly. Is it possible to translate, or, better to say, to paraphrase and re-parody some passages from the history of Miller, to mix them up with your own phrases, to write a scholarly article? in what case are they not comparable, also scholarship? .. ”A. did not have commercial success. In this regard, on March 23, 1835, Gogol wrote to M.P. Pogodin: “... Please print an announcement about Arabesques in Moskovskie Vedomosti, that this book aroused general curiosity, that the cost of it is terrible (NB, still not a penny of profit not received) and the like. On October 7, 1835, Gogol complained to A. S. Pushkin: “Mine neither Arabesques nor Mirgorod work at all. The devil knows what that means. Booksellers are the kind of people who, without any conscience, can be hung on the first tree. Subsequently, most of the works included in A., Gogol did not appreciate too highly. On November 16 (28), 1836, he wrote from Paris to M. P. Pogodin: “I am afraid to remember all my dirty tricks. They appear to my eyes in a kind of formidable accusers. Oblivion, long oblivion asks the soul. And if such a moth appeared that would suddenly eat all the copies of The Inspector General, and with them Arabesques, Evenings and all other nonsense, and for a long time, no one would say anything about me, either in print or orally. words - I would thank fate. Only glory after death (for which, alas, I have done nothing so far) is familiar to the soul of a genuine poet. And modern glory is not worth a penny. In the article “Russian Literature in 1841”, V. G. Belinsky noted that in A. “Gogol moves from merry comedy to“ humor ”, which for him consists in the opposite of contemplation of true life, in contrast to the ideal of life - with the reality of life. And therefore his humor will make laugh only simpletons or children; people who have looked into the depths of life look at his paintings with sad reflection, with heavy anguish ... Because of these monstrous and ugly faces, they see other, fine-looking faces; this dirty reality leads them to the contemplation of ideal reality, and what is, more clearly represents to them what should be ... "

The Arabesque cycle, published at the end of January 1835, was an unusual book. It was made up of articles on art, history, geography, folklore, artistic and historical fragments and contemporary stories (they will then be called St. Petersburg).

The collection opened with a short preface: “This collection consists of plays written by me at different times, in different eras of my life. I didn't write them to order. They spoke from the heart, and I chose as the subject only that which struck me greatly. If we compare “Arabesques” with “Evenings” and even with “Mirgorod”, then they fundamentally changed both the scale of the depicted (it was about the whole world, about all art, starting from ancient), and the very level of its development (not only sensory-intuitive , but also abstract-logical). The author, who acted both as an artist and as a scientist, embraced various aspects of life with his imagination and thought. The book was intended to become a universal model of the world, as the writer sees it, and a mirror of his own work - in the sequence and in the aspect in which it reflected the world.

Specifically, the idea of ​​"Arabesques" went back to Gogol's intention to publish his works as a whole by 1834, releasing a kind of "collected works", which would include "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka" (in 1834, Gogol began to prepare a reprint of " Evenings”, the book was even already censored and approved, but for unknown reasons the second edition was published only in 1836), “Mirgorod” (meaningful as a continuation of “Evenings”) and, finally, “Arabesques”. The task of the latter was to supplement “Evenings” and “Mirgorod”, giving a certain historical and critical context to their work and at the same time expanding the geographical area of ​​their works by introducing the St. Petersburg theme.

Let's pay attention to the title of the collection, which corresponded to the "spirit of the times" and had its own specifics. The word "arabesque" means a special type of ornament, consisting of geometric shapes, stylized leaves, flowers, parts of animals, which arose in imitation of the Arabic style. This word also had an allegorical meaning: "a collection of literary and musical works of small volume, different in content and style." At the same time, in the art history of that time, “arabesques” were in a certain sense synonymous with “grotesque”. Thus, in Plushard's Encyclopedic Lexicon, it was explained that both terms owe their origin to sensual, pictorial "ancient art." And the fantastic “combination of fictional objects ... with objects that really exist in nature, which is characteristic of arabesques; the combination of half-figures, geniuses, etc. with flowers and leaves; placing heavy and massive objects on weak and light ones, etc. was explained as "the realization of a dreamy world", decent, "with proper art", and for modernity 141 .

Fashion for arabesques came to Russia from Germany. So, F. Schlegel conceived the creation of a large epic form "nothing else but a combination of narration, song and other forms" with "confession". And the latter - "involuntarily and naively takes on the character of arabesques." Apparently, Gogol was well aware of all these semantic shades, giving a similar title to his book. "Arabesques" immediately declared both the leading theme - art, and the personal, authorial principle - confession, and the associated fragmentation, a certain exaggeration, and grotesqueness of the image. The “arabesque-grotesque” plan, in turn, predetermined both the appeal to the fine “ancient art”, to history, and the possible caricature depiction of reality, a parody of “mass” vulgar-serious art. Of course, the title only more clearly outlined the most important features of the already formed collection, since, submitting it to censorship, the author called it "Different Works of N. Gogol."

Arabesques partly owed their genesis to the magazines and almanac publications of that time, in particular, to the “almanac of one author” - a single author's collection that united small works of different genres and genres. At the same time, in its structure and didactic orientation, Gogol's book was reminiscent of both the religious-educational "Experiments" of the enlightenment plan 142 and secular writings, like Batiushkov's "Experiments in Verse and Prose", with which it was brought closer by its orientation towards universalism. It could also be compared with the genres of medieval literature, for example, with the translation of the author's "Six Days" of the Church Fathers (John the Exarch, Basil the Great, etc.) - a kind of "encyclopedia", where the structure of the world was explained from a Christian point of view. The combination of artistic and non-artistic material, its alternation became Gogol's compositional device. It can even be said that the collection acted as a palette of a historical novel, the plot of which is the whole past life of mankind (it was not without reason that one of the works of Arabesques was called Life).

It has already been said that in the early 1930s Gogol became seriously interested in history and worked on materials on the history of Ukraine, dreaming of a multi-volume History of Little Russia and History of the Middle Ages. Of the historical articles, the final edition of "Arabesques" included: "On the Teaching of General History", "Schlozer, Miller and Herder", "On the Middle Ages". In the first, Gogol argued the common destinies of Russia and the West, and also developed the idea of ​​the need for an objective reflection of the role of the people in the development of the state and an objective reflection of the role of any people in the history of the world, thereby asserting the unity of world history: “All the events of the world must be so closely connected between themselves and cling to one another, like rings in a chain. If one ring is torn out, then the chain is broken. Gogol clearly learned the last thought from the German philosopher Herder, to whom his other article, published in Arabesques, Schlozer, Miller and Herder, was largely devoted. A certain autobiography was also caught in Gogol's reflections on Schlozer: “He was not a historian, and I even think that he could not be a historian. His thoughts are too jerky, too hot, to settle into the harmonic, harmonious fluidity of the narrative. In the article "On the Middle Ages" Gogol refuted the idea of ​​the Middle Ages as an era of stagnation in the history of civilization and the triumph of barbarism.

Among the articles about art in "Arabesques" were placed: "Sculpture, Painting and Music", "On the Architecture of the Present Time", "On Little Russian Songs", "A Few Words about Pushkin". He formulated the foundations of romantic aesthetics in Sculpture, Painting and Music (written by Gogol back in 1831). "Three wonderful sisters", "three beautiful queens" are called upon to "beautify and delight the world." But, comparing the three types of arts, Gogol, as a true romantic, prefers music, believing that it is she who is able to most influence the soul, being “belonging to the new world” - for “we have never thirsted for impulses that elevate the spirit as in the present time".

The article "The Last Day of Pompeii", written under the impression of the painting of the same name by K. Bryullov, which he brought to St. Petersburg in the summer of 1834 and exhibited at the Academy of Arts, was of fundamental importance for Gogol as a kind of aesthetic credo, the embodiment of which will be, in a certain sense, drama "Inspector" - the image of a "strong crisis", "felt by the whole mass." But at the same time, it was not chaos and destruction that the artist managed to put in the center of the picture, but the eternal triumph of life and beauty: “Bryullov has a man to show all his beauty, all the supreme grace of his nature.”

Initially, Gogol thought to include in Arabesques also a number of fragments of his unfinished works of art: The Terrible Boar, two chapters from the historical novel Hetman, etc. However, only three novellas were included in the final text of the book from fiction: Nevsky Prospekt ”, “Notes of a madman” and “Portrait”. All these three stories formed the basis of the so-called Petersburg cycle of Gogol (this name, in fact, although rooted, is not entirely accurate, since it was given not by Gogol, but by his critics). It is with them that for the first time (with the exception of the St. Petersburg episode "The Night Before Christmas") the St. Petersburg theme clearly enters Gogol's work for the first time.