arabesco

Arabesco appeared in Italian in the sixteenth century, meaning 'in the Arab style.' It described the geometric and vegetal patterns found in Islamic art — interlacing lines, stylized leaves, repeating forms that avoided figural representation. European artists encountered these patterns through trade with the Ottoman Empire and through the Moorish architecture of Spain. They called them arabesques, a word that said more about European perception than about the art itself.

The visual arts meaning came first. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, arabesque described any decorative pattern of intertwining lines. Raphael used arabesque designs in the Vatican loggia, copied from ancient Roman wall paintings that themselves had borrowed from Eastern sources. The word floated through painting, architecture, and decorative arts before it entered dance.

Carlo Blasis, the Italian ballet master, used arabesque to name a specific body position in his 1820 treatise Traité élémentaire, théorique et pratique de l'art de la danse. In the arabesque, the dancer stands on one leg with the other extended behind, one arm forward, creating a long, curved line through the body. Blasis chose the word because the pose resembled the elongated, flowing lines of arabesque ornament. The body became decoration.

The ballet arabesque is now one of the most recognized positions in dance. It appears in virtually every classical ballet. The word has traveled from Arabic art to Italian description to French-language ballet terminology to global usage. Most dancers who perform an arabesque have never seen the Islamic ornament it was named after, and most viewers of Islamic ornament do not think of ballet. The word connects two traditions that have otherwise never met.