Meander (art)
Decorative continuous line border motif
A meander or meandros (Greek: Μαίανδρος) is a decorative border constructed from a continuous line, shaped into a repeated motif. To some Italians, these patterns are known as "Greek lines". Such a design may also be called the Greek fret or Greek key design, although these terms are modern designations; this decorative motif appears much earlier and among Near and Far Eastern cultures that are far from Greece. Usually the term is used for motifs with straight lines and right angles and the many versions with rounded shapes are called running scrolls or, following the etymological origin of the term, may be identified as water wave motifs.
01Meaning of the name
On one hand, the name "meander" recalls the twisting and turning path of the Maeander River in Asia Minor (present day Turkey) that is typical of river pathways. On the other hand, as Karl Kerenyi pointed out, "the meander is the figure of a labyrinth in linear form".
02Decorative uses
Meanders are common decorative elements in Greek and Roman art. In ancient Greece they appear in many architectural friezes, and in bands on the pottery of ancient Greece from the Geometric period onward. The design is common to the present-day in classicizing architecture, and is adopted frequently as a decorative motif for borders for many modern printed materials.
03Labyrinthine meanders in China
The meander is a fundamental design motif in regions far from a Hellenic orbit: labyrinthine meanders ("thunder" pattern ) appear in bands and as infill on Shang bronzes (c. 1600 BC , c. 1045 BC), and many traditional buildings in and around China still bear geometric designs almost identical to meanders. Although space-filling curves have a long history in China in motifs more than several hundred years earlier, extending back to Zhukaigou Culture (c. 2000 BC , c. 1400 BC) and Xiajiadian Culture (c. 2200 BC , c. 1600 BC and c. 1000 BC , c. 600 BC), frequently there is speculation that meanders of Greek origin may have come to China during the time of the Han dynasty (c. 202 BC) by way of trade with the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. The oldest meander motive discovered so far is a key pattern from Mezin, Ukraine, Eastern Europe, from paleolithic era (circa 23,000BCE).
04Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican art
Meander motifs also appears in pre-Columbian art in the western hemisphere, notably Mayan and Aztec, centuries before any European contacts. The term used is Xicalcoliuhqui, stemming from Nahuatl language, but is applied today to all mesoamerican motifs all over the continent.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Meander (art)”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Greek key on a stove in the in the D.A. Sturdza House, in Bucharest.jpg by Beautiful Buildings Pics, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Rhodes meander hg.jpg by Hannes Grobe 19:09, 3 September 2006 (UTC), CC BY-SA 2.5
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