Featuring multidisciplinary research by an international team of leading scholars, this volume addresses the contested aspects of arabesque while exploring its penchant for crossing artistic and cultural boundaries to create new forms. Enthusiastically imported from its Near Eastern sources by European artists, the freely flowing line known as arabesque is a recognizable motif across the arts of painting, music, dance, and literature. From the German Romantics to the Art Nouveau artists, and from Debussy’s compositions to the serpentine choreographies of Loïe Fuller, the chapters in this volume bring together cross-disciplinary perspectives to understand the arabesque across both art historical and musicological discourses.

Anne Leonard is Manton Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts. She is co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Music and Visual Culture and author of The Tragic Muse: Art and Emotion, 1700–1900.