Islamic Tile Fountain

Web Quest

Name:

Challenge

Ceramic mosaic tiles have been used hundreds of years for many purposes. The Islamic Tile Fountain at the Detroit Institute of Arts is an example of mosaic tile used for decoration of a fountain. Mosaic tiles, as well as other art forms, reflect the culture in which it is created. In your web search, you will look at the web sites to answer the following questions to discover more about the Arabic and Islamic cultures and the decorative designs they used. List your answers on separate sheets.

1. List things that are especially important to Arabs.

http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/arab_culture_and_identity/23446

http://www.albany.edu/history/middle-east/culture.htm

http://www.traderscity.com/abcg/cultur11.htm

2. What kinds of designs are often used in Islamic art? http://www.lacma.org/islamic_art/figures/fig6.htm

3. What are some of the patterns used in Islamic decorative tiles? http://www.iranian.com/Iranica/Sept97/Decor/

4. What symbols have been used to decorate the Islamic Tile Fountain?

http://www.diamondial.org/cgi-local/DiaImage.cgi?acc=54.194

How are they similar to the designs in the decorative tile in the last web site?

5. Compare the Islamic Wall Fountain to Quilting Time.

http://www.diamondial.org/cgi-local/DiaImage.cgi?acc=1986.41

Both are made of tiles.

How are they alike? How are they different? What can you find out about a culture from the objects used and how they are shown?

6. Go back to the Islamic tile fountain. After looking at the Islamic tile fountain, ask yourself why artists would make such an intricate design just for a water fountain. After looking at the details, try to describe what the artist was trying to portray with the images.

7. Fold a separate sheet of paper (unlined is best) into four equal parts. Select four details from the Islamic Tile Fountain. Write a description and sketch what you see in each section.

8. Why might these images have been used on this fountain?

9. What might you learn about the Islamic culture through these images?

10. Have you seen ceramic tiles used for decoration in our country? What kinds of images are used on ceramic tile mosaics in our country

11. What might these images tell about our culture?