Arabesque Tile Backsplash

How the shape interlocks

The outline is an ogee on all four sides: a curve that reverses partway along, convex at the top and bottom and concave at the two ends, or the reverse depending which way the piece is turned.

Because the convex side of one piece fills the concave side of the next, the pieces key together the way a jigsaw does. The joint that results wanders instead of running, and an eye following it from one side of a wall to the other never gets a straight line.

Why these are waterjet cut

Most of this range is waterjet: a jet of water carrying an abrasive, driven at very high pressure, which can follow a curve no saw blade could.

That is the enabling technology for the shape in stone. A ceramic arabesque can be pressed in a mold, but a marble or limestone one has to be cut from solid material one piece at a time, which is why a stone arabesque is a different order of product from a pressed one.

The shape has a direction

Unlike a hexagon, an arabesque is not the same all ways round. It has a top and a bottom, and the field reads as columns of lanterns standing upright.

Turning the whole field ninety degrees produces a noticeably different wall, with the lanterns lying on their sides and the rhythm running horizontally. It is a decision with no cost attached and it is worth seeing both ways before the wall is set out.

The edges are the hard part

A field of curved pieces cannot end on a straight line without cutting through a curve at every position along it.

Two answers are used. Half pieces, supplied or cut, give a straight edge at the top and sides of a panel. Alternatively the field is framed with a plain border or a metal profile, which stops the curves against something square. Either way the edge needs deciding before the quantity is fixed, because it changes what is needed.

Reading the size on an arabesque

The dimensions on these listings, such as 4 7/8 by 6 13/16, describe a single piece and not a sheet, because most of this range is supplied loose rather than mounted on mesh.

That also means the figure includes the bulges and the hollows, so the area a piece actually covers once it is keyed into its neighbors is smaller than the two numbers multiplied together. The coverage stated on the listing is the number to work from.

The stones in this range

Honed carries the finishes here, on marbles and limestones including a Jerusalem limestone, a gray, a Bardiglio and an Emperador, with a waterjet group and a small number of pressed pieces.

Honed suits the shape for a reason. An arabesque is already a strong figure, and a polished surface adds reflections that compete with it. A matte face lets the outline do the work.

Where an arabesque goes

A kitchen backsplash, a panel behind a range, a bathroom wall, a shower niche and a framed feature inside a plain field. The shape has come from Islamic ornament, where the same interlocking curve appears in tilework and in the ogee arch, and it carries that association wherever it is used.

Other shapes for the same wall sit in backsplash tile, and the cut stone sheets in marble mosaics.