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▪ I. arabesque, a. and n.|ærəˈbɛsk|
Also 8 arabesk.
[a. F. arabesque Arabian; cf. It. rabesco (Florio 1611), and earlier rebesk.]
A. adj.
1. Arabian, Arabic.
1842Encycl. Brit. II. 693/1 The inglorious obscurity in which the Arabesque doctors have in general slumbered.
2. esp. Arabian or Moorish in ornamental design; carved or painted in arabesque (see B 2).
[1611Cotgr., Arabesque, Rebeske worke; a small, and curious flourishing.] 1656Blount Glossogr., Arabesque, Rebesk work; branched work in painting or in Tapestry. 1779H. Swinburne Trav. Spain xxxi. (T.) Armorial ensigns..interwoven with the arabesque foliage. 1849Freeman Archit. 282 A sort of arabesque pattern with festoons of fruit and flowers.
3. fig. Strangely mixed, fantastic.
1848Dickens Dombey (C.D. ed.) 105 Surrounded by this arabesque work of his musing fancy. 1863Mrs. Clarke Shaks. Char. xvi. 411 Launcelot is a sort of ‘arabesque’ character.
B. n. [the adj. used absol.]
†1. The vulgar Arabic language. Obs.
1770W. Guthrie Geogr., Egypt (T.) The Arabick, or Arabesque, as it is called, is still the current language. 1796Morse Amer. Geog. II. 580 The vulgar language..is the Arabesk, or corrupt Arabian.
2. A species of mural or surface decoration in colour or low relief, composed in flowing lines of branches, leaves, and scroll-work fancifully intertwined. Also fig.
As used in Moorish and Arabic decorative art (from which, almost exclusively, it was known in the Middle Ages), representations of living creatures were excluded; but in the arabesques of Raphael, founded on the ancient Græco-Roman work of this kind, and in those of Renascence decoration, human and animal figures, both natural and grotesque, as well as vases, armour, and objects of art, are freely introduced; to this the term is now usually applied, the other being distinguished as Moorish Arabesque, or Moresque.
1786tr. Beckford's Vathek (1868) 66 Could..paint upon vellum the most elegant arabesques that fancy could devise. 1827Carlyle Misc. (1857) I. 14 His manner of writing is—a wild complicated Arabesque. 1844Disraeli Coningsby i. iii. 16 A vestibule, painted in arabesque. 1868Chambers's Encycl. I. 344 The arabesques with which Raphael adorned the galleries of the Vatican, and which he is said to have imitated from those which he had been instrumental in discovering in the baths of Titus, are at once the most famous and the most beautiful which the modern world has produced. 1880Longfellow My Cathedr. 5 Not Art but Nature..carved this graceful arabesque of vines.
3. The figure described by the leading lines of the composition, in a drawing or painting.
1883W. Armstrong in Eng. Illus. Mag. 155/1 The same qualities, but with more freedom and a finer arabesque.
4. Ballet. A pose in which the dancer stands on one foot with one arm extended in front and the other arm and leg extended behind.
1830R. Barton tr. C. Blasis' Code of Terpsichore ii. v. 74 Nothing can be more agreeable to the eye than those charming positions which we call arabesques, and which we have derived from antique basso relievos, from a few fragments of Greek paintings, and from the paintings in fresco at the Vatican, executed after the beautiful designs of Raphael. 1911J. E. C. Flitch Mod. Dancing iii. 42 One of her [sc. Marie Taglioni's] most wonderful attitudes was an arabesque which gave her the appearance of actually flying. 1928A. L. Haskell Some Stud. in Ballet 151 Everything in it depends on line, absolute precision of movement and the purity of the arabesque.
5. Mus. (See quot. 1879.) Also transf.
1864Cramer, Beale & Wood's New Eds. Piano Forte Works Misc. Ser., No. 4 (title) Arabesques, by R. Schumann. 1879Grove's Dict. Mus. I. 80/2 Arabesque..(1) The title has been given..by Schumann to one of his pianoforte pieces.., which is written in a form bearing some analogy to that of the rondo, and it has been since occasionally used by other writers for the piano. (2) The word ‘Arabesque’ is sometimes used by writers on music to express the ornamentation of a theme. 1924A. D. Sedgwick Little French Girl iii. vii, Listening to a blackbird that fluted golden arabesques.
▪ II. araˈbesque, v.
[f. arabesque n.]
trans. To ornament in arabesque. Hence araˈbesquing ppl. a.
1858Hawthorne Fr. & It. Jrnls. I. 264 A small room..arabesqued in rich designs by Raphael. 1861Sala in Temple Bar I. 306 The same embroideress who arabesqued the hems of her under⁓skirts pinked the shrouds. 1867H. Latham Black & White 21 A cell in which a weaver had arabesqued the walls. 1877J. Hawthorne Garth ix. lxviii, The skylight was arabesqued with frost. 1908Saintsbury in Camb. Hist. Eng. Lit. II. 191 A sort of vignetting or arabesquing fringe and atmosphere of exaggeration and fantasy. |