On Tuesday, November 25th, Ms. La Tanza and Ms. Dye's Geometric Design class took a trip to the Metropolitan Museum to visit the Islamic Art Section. Students have been working on constructing Islamic art designs throughout the entire first marking period. They had the opportunity to see how the same designs have been used in Islamic Art and Architecture for tessellation in the interior and exterior decorations of buildings, houses, mosques, pottery, jewelry, and carpets. For each design, students learned to identify its basic regular polygon: pentagon, hexagon, octagon, decagon, and its details inside (6-pointed stars, 8-pointed stars, additional regular or irregular polygons, etc.). They also had to provide a brief description of where the artifact was found and how it was used.
The Met's collection of Islamic art ranges in date from the seventh to the twenty-first century. It's more than 15,000 objects reflect the diversity of the cultural traditions of Islam, with works from as far westward as Spain and Morocco and as far eastward as Central Asia and Indonesia. The collection reveals the mutual influence of artistic practices such as calligraphy and the exchange of motifs such as vegetal ornament (the arabesque) and geometric patterning in both realms. In 2011, after an extensive renovation, the Museum opened fifteen dramatic new Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia. The greatly enlarged and freshly conceived galleries highlight both the diversity and the interconnectedness of the numerous cultures represented, with multiple entryways that allow visitors to approach the galleries from different perspectives.
During their trip, Students have been paired up to complete a Scavenger hunt in a Google form on their phones. Some students who had never interacted with each other before had the opportunity to meet new friends while having fun and completing an assignment.
Special thank you to Ms.Goldstein who chaperoned the trip!
Citations
“Islamic Art.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, www.metmuseum.org/departments/islamic-art Accessed 10 Dec. 2025.