Style combination · Contrasts

Baghdad School of Arab Book Painting × Islamic Geometric

Non-figural Islamic art is the contrast: this style puts people and satire where geometry would be. No descent is implied.

From the research on Baghdad School of Arab Book Painting (Maqamat Illustration)

Mix them and make something Baghdad School of Arab Book Painting Islamic Geometric

Large black Arabic calligraphy fills an ornate cream central panel surrounded by interlaced geometric borders and floral scrollwork in gold, blue, green and rust red. Four illustrated corner scenes show travelers with a horse, a teacher and students, a sailing boat, and an astronomer holding an astrolabe beneath a crescent moon and stars. — AI-generated by Stylogeny from the recipe below, and checked against it: the type from Islamic Geometric, the form from Islamic Geometric, the composition from Baghdad School of Arab Book Painting. Not a real or historical work.

What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

Baghdad School of Arab Book Painting (Maqamat Illustration) Islamic Geometric & Calligraphic Tradition

Type from Islamic Geometric: Brush & pen calligraphy
Type as image
Colour from Baghdad School of Arab Book Painting: Flat fields
Jewel & metallic
Form from Islamic Geometric: Non-representational
Geometric tessellation
Composition from Baghdad School of Arab Book Painting: Framed panels
Sequential narrative
Surface from Baghdad School of Arab Book Painting: Flat

The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Islamic Geometric

Okay

Reem Kufi, standing in for Kufic (including square bannāʾī Kufic)

Text · Baghdad School of Arab Book Painting

Illustrated copies of al-Hariri's satirical Maqamat made in Iraq, Syria and Egypt from about 1200 to the 1330s. Small framed miniatures, many touched with gold, interrupt the red and black Arabic text and show everyday urban scenes, with costume marking each figure's social type. A secular, comic, figural book art. Caution: the name 'Baghdad school' is a convenience; the BnF calls the Schefer Hariri 'Mesopotamian' and a Baghdad origin is conjectural. The costume and skin-tone coding of servants reflects period social hierarchy and should not be reproduced uncritically.

Space Mono; Baghdad School of Arab Book Painting used Arabic naskh book hand and Arabic display headings in thuluth-style script

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Baghdad School of Arab Book Painting, with a counter-accent from Islamic Geometric. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Baghdad School of Arab Book Painting (Maqamat Illustration) Islamic Geometric & Calligraphic Tradition

#e8d9b5 ground · 36%
#1b1b1b ink · 14%
#c8a23a accent · 18%
#8c2f1f accent · 14%
#2f5d7c accent · 10%
#4a6b3f accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #e8d9b5;
  --ink: #1b1b1b;
  --accent-1: #c8a23a;
  --accent-2: #8c2f1f;
  --accent-3: #2f5d7c;
  --accent-4: #4a6b3f;
  --font-display: "Reem Kufi", cursive;
  --font-text: "Space Mono", monospace;
}

Use it with care

Islamic Geometric & Calligraphic Tradition: Qur'anic verses, the names of God and the Prophet and other sacred phrases must not be cropped, distorted, mirrored, used as texture or printed on floors, footwear or throwaway packaging; have any Arabic-script text read and approved by a fluent reader or calligrapher. Abstract geometric pattern is far less sensitive than script, but credit the traditions and makers it comes from.