Patterns
Designs built from repeated motifs, whether woven, printed, carved, tiled or painted.
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A pattern repeats a unit, such as a flower, a star or a stripe, according to a rule, and the rule is often as interesting as the motif. Some patterns run in a line as borders; others spread across a whole surface. Textiles have always been a major source: Andean weavers, Indian block printers and West African cloth makers each developed distinctive repeating systems over centuries.
Designers have also codified pattern. Owen Jones's The Grammar of Ornament (1856) gathered motifs from many cultures for Victorian designers, and William Morris's wallpapers, such as Trellis (1864), hide the repeat inside twining growth. Anni Albers wove geometric patterns at the Bauhaus and after, and M.C. Escher studied the tilework of the Alhambra before designing interlocking tessellations of birds and fish. Op artists such as Victor Vasarely made repeating units vibrate. Look for the underlying grid, mirror or rotation that organises the repeat.
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