A morse is a Moorish ranger ornament; a flat fill of which the sheets are only partially drawn, usually only the left or right half or schematic, and are almost always only black and white.
The motif was very popular during the Renaissance. The religion of the Moors forbade them to imitate man or nature, and their ornamentation motifs became more or less abstract. Not to be confused with arabesques.
The term is derived from the French moresque, which is derived from morisco, the Spanish name of Morisken.
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