Spiral (original) (raw)

The spiral is a universal element in all decoration, in primitive as well as in the most sophisticated art. The running spiral (also known as running dog,wave scroll or Vitruvian scroll) and the meander (also known as Greek fret, Greek key, labyrinth,maze,key pattern) are curved and angular variations of the same motif.

Other figures, for example the four-strand spiral and the swastika, are similarly related.

Spiral and meander motifs, and their intermediate forms, have a long history in the Mediterranean....

Meanders and key patterns are today closely associated with Greek art and architecture. In the formalized Orders of architecture the meander motif was assigned to flat vertical surfaces. In the eighteenth-century European revival of interest in classical Greece as a source of ornament, it was the in the meander and key patterns which, above all others, signified Greek style and taste.

It is generally accepted that the name of the motif [meander] refers to the winding river Meander in Anatolia, Turkey... The connection with water perhaps persists in Roman times, when the motif is frequently used on mosaic floors in bath houses.With few exceptions, these motifs carry no symbolic messages in Greek and Roman art.

In Greek vase painting of the fifth century BC, however, the meander became associated with a popular story drawn from the legends concerning King Minos of Crete, the story of Theseus slaying the Minotaur and finding his way in and out of the labyrinth. In these representations Theseus and the Minotaur - part bull, part man - are shown as realistic figures, while the Labyrinth is often indicated by a simple meander border, attached to a door post or pillar representing the entrance. In these scenes, therefore, the meander border became the conventional sign or ideogram for the Labyrinth.

- British Museum Pattern Books: Roman Designs , by Eva Wilson, 1999, p. 12.