Blue and white plate Jingdezhen 1271 1368

Poertschach Augustenstrasse 6 Villa Romanini Ostseite Dekorfries 04012015 990

The scroll in art is an element of

ornament An ornament is something used for decoration. Ornament may also refer to: Decoration * Ornament (art), any purely decorative element in architecture and the decorative arts * Biological ornament, a characteristic of animals that appear to serve ...

and graphic design featuring

spiral In mathematics, a spiral is a curve which emanates from a point, moving farther away as it revolves around the point. Helices Two major definitions of "spiral" in the American Heritage Dictionary are:scroll form, though many types are plant-scrolls, which loosely represent plant forms such as vines, with leaves or flowers attached. Scrollwork is a term for some forms of decoration dominated by spiralling scrolls, today used in popular language for two-dimensional decorative flourishes and

arabesque The arabesque is a form of artistic decoration consisting of "surface decorations based on rhythmic linear patterns of scrolling and interlacing foliage, tendrils" or plain lines, often combined with other elements. Another definition is "Foli ...

s of all kinds, especially those with circular or spiralling shapes. Scroll decoration has been used for the decoration of a vast range of objects, in all Eurasian cultures, and most beyond. A lengthy evolution over the last two millennia has taken forms of plant-based scroll decoration from Greco-Roman architecture to Chinese pottery, and then back across

Eurasia Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelag ...

to Europe. They are very widespread in architectural decoration, woodcarving, painted ceramics,

mosaic A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

, and illuminated manuscripts (mostly for borders). In the usual artistic convention, scrolls "apparently do not succumb to gravitational forces, as garlands and

festoon A festoon (from French ''feston'', Italian ''festone'', from a Late Latin ''festo'', originally a festal garland, Latin ''festum'', feast) is a wreath or garland hanging from two points, and in architecture typically a carved ornament depict ...

s do, or oppose them, in the manner of vertically growing trees. This gives scrolls a relentless power. Even if attached to walls, they are more deeply embedded in the architectural order than the festoon, which are fictitiously hanging on them."

Terminology

Typically in true scrolls the main "stem" lines do not cross over each other, or not significantly. When crossing stems become a dominant feature in the design, terms such as interlace or

are used instead. Many scrolls run along a relatively narrow band, such as a

frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

panel or the border of a carpet or piece of textile or ceramics, and so are often called "running scrolls", while others spread to cover wide areas, and are often infinitely expandible. Similar motifs made up of straight lines and right angles, such as the "Greek key", are more often called meanders. In art history, a "floriated" or "flower scroll" has flowers, often in the centre of the volutes, and a "foliated" or "leaf scroll" shows leaves in varying degrees of profusion along the stems. The Ara Pacis scrolls are foliated and sparingly floriated, whilst those in the Dome of the Rock mosaics are profusely foliated with thick leaves forming segments of the stems. As in arabesques, the "leaf" forms often spring directly from the stem without a leaf stalk in ways that few if any real plants do; these are generally derived from the ancient half-palmette motif, with the stem running along the bisected edge of the palmette. Although forms are often based on real plants, especially the acanthus, vine,

lotus Lotus may refer to: Plants *Lotus (plant), various botanical taxa commonly known as lotus, particularly: ** ''Lotus'' (genus), a genus of terrestrial plants in the family Fabaceae **Lotus flower, a symbolically important aquatic Asian plant also ...

and paeony, faithful representation is rarely the point of the design, as of these four only the vine is actually the sort of climbing plant with many stems and tendrils that scrolls generally represent. Later Islamic and Chinese scroll decoration often included more flowers than European designs, whether classical or medieval (see below). Scroll-forms containing animals or human figures are said to be "inhabited"; more often than not the figures are wildly out of scale with the plant forms. Frequently, especially in spreading designs, an upright element imitating the main stem or flower-stalk of the plant appears as a central element protruding vertically from the base, again as in the Ara Pacis panel. This may be termed a "standard" but is not a necessary element; it gives the design a top and bottom, which may be appropriate for architecture or furniture, but many designs on textiles and pottery are intended to have no main orientation for the viewer. The standard was frequently depicted as a fanciful candelabra in grotesque designs, in which it is an important element, central to the composition. Scrollwork in its strict meaning is rather different; the scroll is imagined as the curling end of a strip or sheet of some flat and wide material. It develops from strapwork, as the ends of otherwise flat elements, loosely imitating leather, metal sheets, or broad leaves rather than plant tendrils. Rather than the "profile" view displaying the spiral, the forms are often shown front on with the width of the strip seen. It begins in the Renaissance, and becomes increasingly popular in Mannerist and Baroque ornament.

History

Continuous scroll decoration has a very long history, and such patterns were an essential element of classical and medieval decoration. The use of scrolls in ornament goes back to at least the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

; geometric scroll ornament has been found in the Palace of

Knossos Knossos (also Cnossos, both pronounced ; grc, Κνωσός, Knōsós, ; Linear B: ''Ko-no-so'') is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and has been called Europe's oldest city. Settled as early as the Neolithic period, the na ...

at Minoan

Crete Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cypru ...

dating to approximately 1800 BC, perhaps drawing from even earlier Egyptian styles; there were also early examples in

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...

. Geometrical scroll patterns like the Vitruvian scroll are found very widely in many cultures, and probably often developed independently. Plant-based scrolls were very widely used in Greek and Roman architectural decoration, spreading from them to other types of objects. They may have first evolved in Greek painted pottery, where their development can traced in the large surviving ''corpus''. In Europe Greco-Roman decoration, probably especially as seen in jewellery and floor

s, was adapted by the "barbarian" peoples of the

Migration Period The Migration Period was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories by various tribes, and the establishment of the post-Roma ...

into interlace styles, often replacing the plant forms of the main scrolling stem with stretched and stylized animal forms. In Anglo-Saxon art the interlace designs of the early pagan

Anglo-Saxons The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo-Saxons happened wit ...

were partly replaced by vine scrolls after Christianization, and medieval European decoration in general evolved styles that combined the two. Another expansion was to the East: "The practice of decorating facades in Chinese Buddhist caves with figures combined with leaf scrolls was derived in its entirety from provincial forms of Hellenistic architecture employed in

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the former ...

"; they appear in China from the 5th century. The ('' Nelumbo nucifera'') lotus flower was a symbol of

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

, and so very often included in these religious scroll designs from the 6th century on, which was to have a profound influence on Asian scroll designs, long after the religious significance had been largely or entirely forgotten, and in places where the actual lotus water plant was unknown. It was several centuries before these designs were adapted by Chinese potters, via their earlier adoption in metalwork; indeed an isolated gilt-bronze cup with a vine scroll comes from the 5th-century Northern Wei, probably influenced by metalwork from the West, and more abstracted or geometrical scroll designs appear earlier in Chinese art. The paeony seems to have become very fashionable in China during the T'ang dynasty, and often replaced the lotus flower. By the Yuan dynasty plant scroll designs became very important in painted pottery. In the Islamic world the external influences were initially mainly from their Byzantine and Sasanian predecessors, but later, especially after the Mongol conquests, from Chinese designs, especially in pottery, which themselves had developed from the original Buddhist importation to China. Greco-Buddhist art, and direct luxury imports, brought scroll forms to India, for example to the great 1st century stupa at

Amaravati Amaravati () is the capital of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It is located on the banks of the river Krishna in Guntur district. The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone at a ceremonial event in Uddand ...

in southern India, from where they spread to South-East Asia, with additional input from China. There they often became very abstracted in pottery. Japan was heavily influenced by China. From the late medieval period onwards Chinese and Indian scrolling styles, and their Islamic cousins, were imported to Europe on pottery and textiles, reaching a peak of influence in the 18th-century. In the Renaissance Europe had also revived interest in versions of its own classical styles that more strictly followed their originals.

Common types

In one common spreading type for wide areas, the basic form of the arabesque is a heart shape formed from two confronted volutes on stems, shown highlighted in green in the illustration. To this core are added any number of further volutes, above, below or to the sides. It is thus a motif which can be infinitely expanded to cover a surface of any size, and indeed this function of decorating plain surfaces, as a form of diaper, is its chief use. From the illustration it is clear that the form present on the '' Ara Pacis'' (drawing E) erected in Imperial Rome during the time of

Augustus Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pr ...

, that is to say during the 1st quarter of the 1st century AD, is unchanged in substance when compared with the form in the

apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an '' exedra''. ...

of San Clemente al Laterano in Rome dated c. 1200 (drawing C). The basic form appears unaltered during the intervening centuries, and indeed continued in use through the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass id ...

and to the present day. In other types the heart-shaped core is omitted, the scroll taking the form of an "S" with voluted ends, generally seen in confronted pairs, as in the mosaics of the Treasury of the

Great Mosque of Damascus The Umayyad Mosque ( ar, الجامع الأموي, al-Jāmiʿ al-Umawī), also known as the Great Mosque of Damascus ( ar, الجامع الدمشق, al-Jāmiʿ al-Damishq), located in the old city of Damascus, the capital of Syria, is one of the ...

, Byzantine work of the 7th century. This form is also encountered at the Treasury in Damascus, having a pair of volutes turned inwards towards the bowl. The form is generally used alone and does not sprout further volutes as generally does the core heart-shaped form.

Applications

Scrollwork (in the popular definition) is most commonly associated with

Baroque architecture Baroque architecture is a highly decorative and theatrical style which appeared in Italy in the early 17th century and gradually spread across Europe. It was originally introduced by the Catholic Church, particularly by the Jesuits, as a means t ...

, though it saw uses in almost every decorative application, including furniture, metalwork, porcelain and

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an i ...

. In Mannerism, strapwork forms often terminated in scrolls. Modern blacksmiths use scrolls in ornamental wrought-iron work gates and balustrades, and they have formed the basis of many

wallpaper Wallpaper is a material used in interior decoration to decorate the interior walls of domestic and public buildings. It is usually sold in rolls and is applied onto a wall using wallpaper paste Adhesive flakes that are mixed with water to pro ...

designs. Applications of single scroll forms can be seen in the

volute A volute is a spiral, scroll-like ornament that forms the basis of the Ionic order, found in the capital of the Ionic column. It was later incorporated into Corinthian order and Composite column capitals. Four are normally to be found on an ...

s at the head of an Ionic column, the carved scroll at the end of the pegbox on instruments in the violin family (resembling fiddleheads in nature), and the heads of many Western crosiers. Scrollwork is a technique used in cake decorating. "Albeit a bit baroque, scrollwork lends a charmingly antique quality to the sides of a cake."Rose Levy Beranbaum, 1988, The Cake Bible, p.403-404. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc Scrollwork in wood may be made using a scroll saw. File:Limestone friezes of vines from Hatra, Iraq. 2nd-3rd century CE. Iraq Museum.jpg, Scrolls from Hatra, 2nd century CE. File:ScrollEvolution.JPG, Asian scrolls: Top:Vine with grapes,

Gandhara Gandhāra is the name of an ancient region located in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, more precisely in present-day north-west Pakistan and parts of south-east Afghanistan. The region centered around the Peshawar Val ...

n frieze, 2nd century; middle left, Chinese vase, 6th century; right:Japanese tile, 7th century, Bottom: Japanese, contemporary File:Gandhara floral scrolls.jpg,

floral scrolls. File:PALMYRA Temple of Baal floral scroll.jpg, Palmyra, Temple of Baal floral scroll File:South Arabian - Relief with Vines - Walters 2167.jpg, 2nd century Greco-Roman vine scroll, South Arabia File:Armenian mosaic and inscr at Jerusalem.jpg, 6th century mosaic floor in

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

with vine scroll, and inscription in Armenian File:Brit Mus 13sept10 brooches etc 071-crop.jpg,

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

vine scroll decoration, with grapes but hardly any leaves File:Psalter of Oswald - Harley 2904 f4 Beatus initial.jpg, Late Anglo-Saxon scrolls in a Beatus initial, drawing on classical acanthus scrolls, via the Carolingian Renaissance File:Foligno025.jpg, Italian scroll decoration: Medieval, inhabited, at right, Renaissance? at left File:Anneau portail de la Vierge Notre-Dame de Paris.jpg, Wrought-iron spreading scrolls with flowers on a door of Notre Dame de Paris. File:Apsis mosaic San Clemente.jpg, San Clemente, Rome,

mosaic c. 1200 File:Damasco moschea degli OmayyadiHPIM3241.JPG, Treasury of the Great Mosque, Damascus, 7th-century mosaic by Byzantine artists File:Gargilesse-Dampierre (36) Église Saint-Laurent et Notre-Dame Chapiteau 07.JPG, French Romanesque scrollwork on a capital File:Large Bowl (Wan) with Floral Scrolls LACMA M.52.2.2.jpg, Large Bowl (Wan) with floral scrolls, China, Jiangxi Province, Jingdezhen, Early Ming dynasty, 1368-1450 File:Charger with Blossoming Peony Decor, early 15th century, probably Yongle period, Ming dynasty, Jingdezhen kilns, Jiangxi, China, porcelain with underglaze cobalt blue - Sackler Museum - DSC02578.JPG, Charger with Blossoming Peony Decor, early 15th century, probably Yongle period, Ming dynasty, Jingdezhen kilns, Jiangxi, China, porcelain with underglaze cobalt blue File:Japanese - Tsuba with Scrollwork Design - Walters 51148.jpg, Japanese tsuba with geometric scrollwork design, not imitating plant forms File:Cup (Guang) in the Form of a Rhyton with Dragons and Scrollwork LACMA AC1993.231.3.jpg, Chinese cup (Guang) in the form of a rhyton with dragons and scrollwork panel File:Iznik dish British Museum G.21.jpg, Turkish İznik pottery, c. 1550, with "rock and wave" scrolls round the rim File:Squat Jar with Cursive Floral Scroll LACMA M.84.213.204.jpg, Stylized "cursive floral scroll", Thailand, Sukhothai, late 14th century File:2908 - Catania - Giov. Batt. Vaccarini - Chiesa della Badia di S. Agata (1767) - Foto Giovanni Dall'Orto, 4-July-2008.jpg, Baroque scrollwork from a church in Catania File:ViolinCarving.JPG, Scrollwork and the royal arms of the Stuarts on the back of a violin, English about 1680 File:Small Round Lidded Cosmetic Box (Lian) with Scrolling Clouds and Birds LACMA M.2001.32.3a-b.jpg, Small Round Lidded Cosmetic Box (Lian) with Scrolling Clouds and Birds, China, late Western Han dynasty, about 100 BC-AD 25 File:Manunggul Jar.jpg, Manunggul Jar, dated 890-710 BCE, is an early burial jar in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

with scroll designs

Plant scrolls, Late antique to Early Medieval examples

* Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome. Sides of the apse mosaic, c. 432. * Basilica di San Clemente, Rome, apse mosaic, c. 1200. * Lateran, Rome, chapel of Saints Rufinus & Secundus, apse mosaic, 4th century. * Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna, mosaic in north lunette, c. 440. *Treasury of

, mosaics of external walls, 7th century. * Dome of the Rock Mosque, Jerusalem, mosaic in octagon, 691-2

Pattern forms

* Vitruvian scroll

Notes

References

* Rawson, Jessica, ''Chinese Ornament: The Lotus and the Dragon'', 1984, British Museum Publications,

External links

{{Authority control Decorative arts Visual motifs Architectural elements Ornaments Ornaments (architecture)