Database: "Abbasid Style"

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Wall covering in a private house / 9th century, Samarra, Iraq

Abbasid artisans combined artistic techniques from ancient Greco-Roman and Persian traditions. They used these in new and creative ways that were widely adopted across the empire and created a distinctive Abbasid style.

One of its main characteristics was the use of abstracted scrolling and vegetal motifs, repeated again and again. These stylised motifs initially appeared on walls and stucco reliefs, but soon adorned dishes and clothes, as well as books. Historians have called it the "beveled" style, as it is characterized by symmetrical, abstract, vegetal forms with contours that are carved on a slant. First appearing in the first half of the ninth century in Samarra, this style spread throughout the empire in the course of the tenth century.

These motifs were used in combination with other kinds of decoration, for example painted frescos and glass mosaics. Abbasid architecture was also decorated with glazed ceramic tiles. In time, covering surfaces with colorful ceramic tiles became one of the most recognized features of Islamic architecture.