Ottoman Arts - Miniatures (Oriental style painting)

Bab-ı Hümayun Topkapı Palace Libarary 16Th Century Prince Cem Reception of ambassadors by Sultan SelimII From Şehname-i Selim Khan Topkapı Palace Libarary 16Th Century

Oriental rulers never paid much attentian ta the pra hi-bition on figurative art. The Omayyad and Abbasid caliphs had the walls of their palaces decorated with murals featuring human and animal figures. The magnificent architecture of the Seljuks was adorned with sculpture, and above all in the great palaces of Eastern rulers miniature painting developed. The roots of this type of painting can be traced back to the pre-Islamic period. Miniature painting passed by turn from the Timurid and Türkmen states, to the Safovids of Iran, the Seljuks and the Ottomans.

Sultan Mehmed II was the first Ottoman sultan to display an interest in the art of figurative painting, hiring famous nakkaş and musavvir to execute paintings on some of the palace walls. He was the first to have his portrait painted by a Western artist (Bellini), and started the collection of works by Eastern and Western artists which was later to become known as the Fatih Album.

But Mehmed II’s successors did not take the same interest in figurative painting, and Ottoman miniature painting survived only as the art of book

THE MINIATURE PAINTER

Ottoman miniature paintings are less ornate, have a more straight forward narrative style, and are remarkably realistic in comparison to those of other Eastern countries. As a general rule they depict specific historic events, wars, victories and public festivities in meticulous detail.

The miniaturist - musavvir - ohs cried his subject carefully, closely studying its morphological and spatial characteristics, and graphic structure. Rut he was obliged to represent these an paper using the traditional narrative stereotypes passed down over the centuries. Within this traditional framework the Ottoman miniature painter exercised an unexpected degree of freedom, and in his constant search to portray reality, achieved a highly sophisticated narrative medium.

Marginalised by religious disapproval of human representation, miniaturists suffered from a sense of guilt. They worked only at the palace workshops on orders for the sultan, illustrating his major achievements, campaigns, biographical accounts of the sub tans known as şehname, and public festivities.

Although the emphasis is on historical documentation, the world which the artist observes so closely isa lively and vigorous one which stretches his imagination. In addition to visual documentation of the events of his age -like the press photographers or documentary film producers of our own- the Ottoman miniaturist is also an undiluted artist; even if fate confined his art to the palace and to the book.

GREAT MASTERS OF SMALL PICTURES

Night Attack From Hubanname-Zenname Topkapı Palace Libarary Aslanhane 16th Century Topkapı Palace Libarary

The first major miniature pointer known to us by name is Sinan Bey, author of the celebrated portrait of Mehmed II (1451-1481). It is thought that this artist may hove been influenced by Western art through acquaintance with the art of Bellini. Famous book illustrations of the same century, are those for Badi-el -Tebrizi’s Dilsizname (Edirne 1455-56), Kulliyat-ı Kátibi and by an anonymous artist for the poet Ahmedi’ s Iskendernâme. It was during these years that an original style of historical depiction emerged.

In the 16th century a very distinctive master painter came to the fore with his famous illustrations far Beyan-i Mendazil-i Sefer-i lrakeyn, describing the places the army passed through during Ottoman campaigns to Iraq. Matrakçı Nasuh el-Silahi was not only historian, writer, calligrapher, and mathematician, but skilled in the martial arts, particularly the sport known as matrak involving the tossing of clubs, and above all an outstanding painter. His paintings ore reminscent of today’s paintings, but have no counterparts eithar in Eastern miniature or the contemporary art of the West.

The reign of Sflleyman the Magnificent was when the şehname as a literary work came into its own, and the Ottoman art of miniature rose to its zenith. Of the five-volume şehname written by the poet Arifi and illustrated by various painters, three volumes stand out as being of particular importance: the Enbiyaname, Osmannâme and Süleymannâme.

The most outstanding years of Ottoman miniature coincide with the reigns of Selim II and Murad II in the second half of the 16th century. The succession of books written by Şehname writer Seyyit Lokman were illustrated by the great miniaturist Nakkaş Osman and other miniature painters working under his direction.

The Zafernâme, Şehnâme-i Selim Han, Sehinşehnâme, Hünernâme and Zübdetü’t-Tevarih are the products of this brilliant epoch. We find the most interesting miniatures of the period in the Surname illustrating the festivities held to celebrate the circumcision of the sons of Murad IlI

Other celebrated illustrated manuscripts of the period are the Siyer-i Nebi on the life of the Prophet Muhammed, and the Eğri Fetihnamesi illustrated by Hasan, famous miniaturist of the reign of Mehmed III.

A later miniature painter of exceptional renown is tevni cognomen for Abdülcelil celebt whose celebrated Surname-i Vehbt and his sensitive portraits and unusual depiction of human figures mark the final peak of this art in the early isth century.

Ottoman Arts - Divan Literature

When the New Literature (Edebiyat-ı Cedide) arrived in the midigth century it became known as the Old Literature (Edebiyat-ı Kadime). Then such terms as Palace Literature, "Enderun" Literature, Medrese Literature, and "Ommet" Literature were tried, and finally Ottoman Literature, Classical Literature, and Classical Turkish Literature. The term we use taday, Divan Literature, was cained at the beginning af the 20th century by diner Seyfettin and Ali Canip. Divan literature is one facet of the story of Turkish, which has been widely used as a literary language since the 11th century. Theoretically and aesthetically divan literature draws on the Islamic world view, and was shaped under the influence af Persian literature, emerging in the late 13th century and surviving until the second half of the 19th century. In essence and linguistic structure it is Turkish, but makes extensive use of Arabic and Persian words, which like Latin and Greek in Europe were the languages of theology and scholarship respectively.
Throughout the Ottoman period diverse types of literature existed side by side, such as folk literature, which made the most skilful use of Turkish and in its purest farm, tekke literature of the mystic orders, and the literatures of the minority communities in languages including Arabic, Armenian, Syriac and Aramaic. Divan literature was the most "Ottoman" of these, and foremost among the cultural elements which typified the Ottoman identity. Divan literature is the literary equivalent of architecture in the Ottoman world of forms of its domes, arches and colonnades and of the music, miniatures, calligraphy, and decorative arts produced and appreciated in these buildings. In a sense divan literature is the written key to the world of Ottoman forms.	Necati, Picture of album "Divan" by Necati, Suleymaniye Library Collection
"Divan" by Ahmet Pacha, Suleymaniye Library Collection "Divan" by Fuzuli, Suleymaniye Library Collection	THE DIVAN POET In the eastern countries emotions and thoughts are expressed most often in poetry. joy, love, grief, melancholy, and all kinds of experiences of life are poured into lines and couplets. It is as if poetry is the most natural form of speech in these lands, where everyone has something of the poet in them. The divan poet was someone raised in Ottoman traditions, literate, and acquainted with the art of poetry. They could be any government official, craftsman, cleric, judge, clerk, soldier, slave or sultan (most of the Ottoman sultans were accomplished poets). They were heirs to a poetry tradition going back centuries, and continued to use its forms, to think according to its rules, and for a lifetime to seek the miracle and alchemy of the word within its framework. Theft poems were first read at gatherings called divan, attended by eminent people, sometimes including the sultan. Subsequently poems by one poet would be compiled into anthologies known as divan after these gatherings. For their subject matter the poems drew on the extensive eastern and Islamic mythology, on religious or secular stories, and on legends. Their narrative was based on a very diverse series of conventional metaphors and puns. Poets never wrote under theft real names, but always used pennames (mahlas), and this anonymity extended to their anthologies, too, which were generally entitled after the poet’s penname, for example the Bakt Divani or the Muhibbi Divani. Nor did the poems themselves have names.
Despite the strict traditional conventions of divan poetry, Ottoman poets often managed to take this form to outstanding heights of literary excellence. In one of his poems, the great sixteenth century poet Raki boasted, In this epoch my words were possessed of sovereignty / The ’kaside’ lode] was presented to me, and the ’gazel’ [lyric poem]. According to an Ottoman Turkish saying, ’The poet is one fourth prophet.

Ottoman Arts - Nakış (Art of decoration)

Book gilding with Chinese clouds motifs.

Nakkaþ Hasan Pacha 16th Century Shield

The discouragement of representative art by Islam led on the one hand to the development of calligraphy, and on the other to graphic forms of expression derived from ancient roots applied to all areas of creative expression.

Decoration of all kinds was known as nakýþ, and applied to every area from architecture to the minor arts, from books to tiles, and fabrics to weapons.

Stylistically, nakýþ cannot be described as originating entirely in the decorative tradition of the Selçuk or Beylik periods, although their influence is visible. Similarly it is not heavily influenced by Persian or Byzantine arts. Instead its main sources of inspiration include the Mon gol Timarids, the Far East and the Turkmen states. Ottoman artists combined these sources of inspiration with their own traditions in a constant process of synthesis, recreating them in original forms

THE NAKKAŞ

The Ottoman visual world took shape in the hands of designer-craftsmen of numerous types referred to as a whole as nakkaþ.

The focal point of this art, from which new ideas stemmed and where the finest artists were trained, was the Palace Nakka5hane or design shop. Here the styles, forms and tastes which were disseminated to the outer most frontiers of the empire were shaped, developed and taught In a sense the Nakkaþhane was the creator of the Ottoman visual identity

Ottoman decorators were involved in the design and application of decorative work in a wide range of fields, and had various names according to their field of specialisotion;

Musavvir nakkaþ executed miniature paintings, and other types of genre and portrait pointing.

Tarrah were responsible for designing the layout of book pages, and also executed pktures of gardens.

Müzehhip executed illumination for books, calligraphic panels and diverse objects.

Cetvelkeş executed the ruled borders of manu-scripts and repaired damaged popes.

Ressam executed ink and brush drawings.

Ottoman nakkaþ learnt the secrets of their art from their masters, just as they had learnt from mas-ters before them, practising what they learnt by means of me5k exercises until their art was an inherent part-their being.

They worked for years in an almost mystic adherence to their art.

Despite this traditional structure which might be assumed to have encouraged inertia, decorators were always receptive to new influences and new materials. Because while being attached to accepted forms and traditions an the one hand, on the other the winds of creative freedom exerted an astonishing effect on this art form.

Ottoman Works of Calligraphy (MORE)

Ottoman Works of Calligraphy