In art history sources, Islamic art is referred to as stylized art. This means that borrowing many components from previous arts, artists have tried to transform and update them according to their approaches and attitudes from the first centuries of Islam. The problem here is the lack of sufficient studies about the details of this evolutionary process. It seems that the related sources and studies have not focused enough on the concept and content of the stylization of Islamic art. This necessitates further studies to avoid misunderstandings and wrong perceptions. There is no doubt that the foundation of Islamic art was formed with the influence of the previous arts of the region, especially Byzantine and Sassanid art. However, some of its elements have been changed over time based on the new religious approaches.
To be precise, the spread of Islam to the surrounding lands, which had rich cultural backgrounds, faced the Muslims with many precious monuments and art pieces, and they tried to take the useful elements to improve their culture. The point is that the Muslim artists did not just copy the elements and transform them step by step but rather stylized them. This process has been a stylization and is one of the main characteristics of Islamic art. This research employs the qualitative analytical method to study more precisely the evolutionary process of the Byzantine and Sassanid motifs, which have been used in the architectural ornaments of the early centuries of Islam. This research was carried out in a descriptive-analytical way, and its data has been collected through the study of library documents.
Respectively, it has been tried to answer these questions clearly: How did the stylization of past motifs in the architectural ornaments of the early centuries of Islamic art begin? And how did it evolve? For this purpose, some photos were selected from each period as the non-random samples and their features were discussed accurately. Generally, it can be concluded that Islamic art and architecture, especially in the field of decorative arts, has inherited a series of motifs from the previous. However, these motifs have been stylized over time using the contents of Islamic philosophy. Finally, the created monuments, which have been formed by the smart combination of geometric patterns and floral motifs, have been able to represent profound meanings such as the perfection and unity in the multiplicity of the Creation.
The basis of Islamic art was established on the artistic foundation left by the region’s earlier civilizations, according to research on art history. Because of their long history in this area and their unique artistic style, the Sassanians in the East and the Byzantines in the West had a significant impact on the cultural and artistic landscape at the time of the founding of Islam. Muslim artists had a fantastic opportunity to use the elements of these two priceless artistic sources to produce a new artistic approach as Islam developed.
The cultural contribution of the Sassanids and Byzantines to the formation of Islamic art in the early centuries is undeniable. However, Muslims did not stick to the taken components and features and tried over time to apply new ideas and attitudes in their works. As a result, an art gradually emerged that incorporated new themes into the structural components of the past. In fact, there was a significant difference between the works of the early centuries of Islamic art and the previous ones, which was a structural transformation or stylization in various elements. In this regard, the motifs can be referred to in particular, which seem to have a specific intellectual foundation and gradually transformed Islamic art into an ideal and unique form.
Stylization in art refers to making changes in the style and form of the works in order to avoid realistic representations. For this purpose, shapes and patterns, in accordance with the artist’s perspective, distance themselves as much as possible from their natural and recognizable forms and transform into simpler or abstract ones. Usually, the goal here is to emphasize other dimensions of the work to express or convey a different concept. In definitions related to Islamic art, the stylization of motifs has often been mentioned as one of the important characteristics, which essentially involves the transformation of predominantly naturalistic ancient motifs to create a new artistic school. The art of architectural ornaments, which is one of the oldest and most enduring manifestations of early Muslim art, can well be studied to understand the roots of the formation and evolution of Islamic art. These ornaments contain different forms of motifs that have been stylized over the years.
It seems that the initial stage of stylization of the motifs appeared in the distortion of shapes and two-dimensional images, which can be seen in the simplified shapes of vases or crowns in the ornaments of the Dome of the Rock or flat and shallow images of landscapes in the Great Mosque of Damascus. At this stage, the role of the imagination and conceptual ideas for designing and creating the new components is significant. There are some combinations of different motifs, which are imaginative and unrealistic. Then, the use of geometric patterns for forming the composition came up with a great change in Islamic art.
These motifs, which were often used for ornamental borders and margins, especially in Byzantine art, gradually found a wider use to form the main structure of Islamic architectural ornaments. In addition, floral motifs were the other main elements that were placed in the empty spaces created by the expansion of geometric patterns. In primary years, floral motifs were depicted with an imaginative naturalistic approach, but these motifs gradually took on an unrealistic appearance. This is an updated combination that creates a special identity for Islamic art over time and is called arabesque in the related references. Referring to the decorations of some Umayyad palaces like Khirbat al-Mafjar or Al-Mushatta, the different forms of this combination can be seen clearly.
Relatively, the evolution of Islamic art and ornaments enters the maturity stage during the Abbasid period, the important stage in which Muslim artists’ perceptions of Byzantine and Sasanian art merged with artistic experiences from the Umayyad period and reached a glorious point. The surviving works of this brilliant period, such as stucco panels of Samarra or the decorations of the Ibn Tulun Mosque in Cairo, reveal a new artistic style that is different from all previous examples. In this style, stylized and distorted motifs constantly connect to each other and create a unique form that is almost abstract.
It appears that all Muslim artists have, since a certain time, concentrated on the development of structural elements in accordance with Islamic theological ideas in order to produce a particular artistic style. This was the primary concept behind the stylization, which was a methodical and elegant approach to transforming all of the current patterns and motifs from organic shapes to abstract ones. To make the artwork semantically rich and thought-provoking, the stylization of themes in the supplementary stage actually involved a shift from imaginative naturalism to abstraction.
This evolutionary process was influenced by the progress of theoretical and philosophical discussions under the Islamic attitudes. However, it benefited from many classical aesthetic attributes that were used to represent the considered theological thoughts and meanings. Some of these attributes are orderliness, coherence, symmetry, proportion, simplicity, and repetition. These aesthetic attributes, along with some major contents such as iconoclasm, imaginary, or metaphor, make up the definition of the stylization of Islamic art.