Traditional Turkish Arts by Ayla ERSOY REPUBLIC OF TURKEY MINISTRY OF CULTURE AND TOURISM PUBLICATIONS © Republic of Turkey Ministry of Culture and Tourism General Directorate of Libraries and Publications 3156 Handbook Series 2 ISBN: 978-975-17-3367-2 www.kulturturizm.gov.tr e-posta: [email protected] Ersoy, Ayla Traditional Turkish arts / Ayla Ersoy.- Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism, 2008. 200 p.: col. ill.; 20 cm.- (Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications; 3156.Handbook Series of General Directorate of Libraries and Publications: 2) ISBN: 978-975-17-3367-2 I. title. II. Series. 700,9561 Cover Picture Levnî, Miniature Printed by MRK First Edition Print run: 3000. Printed in Ankara in 2008. *Ayla Ersoy is professor at Dogus University, Faculty of Fine Arts and Design. TABLE OF CONTENTS I ART OF STONE ORNAMENTATION 5 Motifs of the Seljuk Stone Ornamentation 6 Masterpieces of the Anatolian Stone Ornamentation 13 II ART OF TILING 18 Tiling Techniques 18 Roots of the Art of Turkish Tiles 22 Art of Tiling in the Anatolian Seljuk Period 25 Art of Tiling in the Ottoman Period 31 III ART OF CERAMICS 38 Art of Ceramics in the Anatolian Seljuk Period 39 Art of Ceramics in the Ottoman Period 40 IV ART OF GLASS 44 Techniques of Glassmaking 46 Art of Glass in the Anatolian Seljuk Period 48 Art of Glass in the Ottoman Period 50 V ART OF CARPET WEAVING 55 Carpets Motifs 57 First Turkish Carpets 61 Carpets of the Anatolian Seljuk Period 62 Turkish Carpets with Animal Figures 64 Carpets of the Early Ottoman Period 66 Carpets of the Ottoman Classical Period 67 Carpets of the Late Ottoman Period 71 VI ART OF RUG WEAVING 75 Ottoman Palace Rugs 79 VII ART OF EMBROIDERY 82 VIII ART OF WOODWORKING 87 Woodwork in the Early Islamic Period 88 Techniques in Wood Engraving 91 Typological Development 95 Woodworks of the Seljuk Period 98 Woodworks of the Ottoman Period 102 IX ART OF MINIATURE 108 Historical Development of Turkish Miniature Art 108 Miniatures of the Anatolian Seljuk Period 116 Miniatures of the Early Ottoman Period 118 Miniatures of Fatih Sultan Mehmet (the Conqueror)’s Period 120 Miniatures during the Rise of the Ottomans 123 The Classical Ottoman Miniature Style 127 Miniatures of the 17th Century 130 Western Influences on the Ottoman Miniatures 133 X ART OF ILLUMINATION 138 What is Illumination? 143 Making Illumination 145 Types of Illumination 149 Early Period Illuminations 151 Illuminations of the Seljuk Period 153 Illuminations of the Early Ottoman Period 157 Illuminations of the Ottoman Classical Period 162 Illuminations of the Late Ottoman Period (Rococo Style) 167 XI ART OF PAPER MARBLING 171 Making Marbled Paper 173 Types of Paper Marbling 175 Short History of Marbling 178 XII ART OF CALLIGRAPHY 181 Types of Calligraphy 182 History of the Art of Calligraphy 187 NOTE ON USAGE 194 BIBLIOGRAPHY 195 CHAPTER I ART OF STONE ORNAMENTATION The brightest era of stone ornamentation in the history of Turks was the thirteenth century during the era of the Seljuks in Anatolia. The primary sources of Anatolian Seljuk ornaments were based on the brick, plaster and terracotta ornaments of the Great Seljuks in the Persian region, while the influences of the works of art from the Syrian region and Zengid-Eyyubi period were also seen in the eleventh century during the time of Artuks in Southeastern Anatolia; in Diyarbakir, Silvan, and Mardin regions. On the other hand, stone reliefs were widely used for the architectural ornaments of Ghazni, especially at Sultan Mesud’s Palace. Marble reliefs were composed of calligraphy lines, figures, geometrical and vegetal embellishments. Because stone was not easily found in Khorasan and Persia, mostly brick and adobe were used as the building materials. Very rich brick decors were created by composing the brick in many different ways. The monuments reflected the most beautiful The Courtyard of examples Diyarbakır Great (Ulu) Mosque of brick ornamentation with various motifs such as zigzag, fish bone, various geometrical figures, star, hexagon or octagon, and dovetail. Later, the richness of patterns was further increased - 5 - with the addition of plaster ornaments. Various geometrical ornaments composed of intersecting octagons and hexagons with reciprocally intersecting rumis and palmettos appeared in the era of Karahans, Ghaznis and Great Seljuks, and they also continued to exist in Anatolia during the era of Seljuks and Karamanoğulları as well as in the early Ottoman architecture. Motifs of the Seljuk Stone Ornamentation The basic elements of decoration on the stone works of the Seljuks are vegetal motifs and geometrical motifs, inscriptions and a few decors with figures. Vegetal Motifs: The main motif is the three sliced palmetto leaves. An entangled net of complete or semi palmettos form up arabesques. The tips of half and full palmettos are curved like a knot. The borders are created with leaf motifs. Apart from palmetto; lotus and acanthus leaves were also used. Very rarely, tree of life motif was also included. Tree of life is one of those motifs originated from Shamanism. The roots of the tree are under the ground, its trunk is on the ground and its Sivas Gök Madrasah‘s front - 6 - brunches rise towards the sky. So, it is used as a sacred icon that connects sky to the ground, and expresses the universe and world axis. The reliefs with the tree of life, the double headed eagle on its top representing the sky and the protector dragons below, are among the favorite stone ornamentation motifs. Geometrical Motifs: They consist of the borders with chains and dovetails. Geometrical dovetail nets were composed of polygons and Sivas Gök Madrasah, crowndoor stars, with small and large rosettes placed inside. There are spherical convex rosettes on two sides above the portals. The source of the geometrical embellishment in Anatolia is certainly the Great Seljuk in Persia. The highly diversified geometrical figures such as stars, zigzag, round, knot and dovetail are repetitively regenerated on a complex system with symmetrical, balanced and very accurate calculations. None of these motifs was created randomly or incidentally. Each of them has symbolic meanings. The circle or the circle with a point in the middle symbolizes the sun; the two spheres on the sides of the ports symbolize the moon and the sun. The stars or the rotating figures which are named as the passionflower motif are related with the dervish lodges and sects. The expanding motifs such as dovetail or knot express the eternity or continuity as their beginnings and ends are not clear. The widely used geometrical patterns on the stone ornaments are related with the philosophy of Islam. The wrong belief, which is known as the “prohibition of imaging” has been influential in the Islamic arts. The symmetry of human body created the idea - 7 - of applying the geometrical compositions symmetrically in the ornaments. The artists, alienated from creating human and animal figures, were oriented towards expressing their entire creativities with geometrical designs, and narrated the rhythmic order of the life and universe symbolically through the shapes. Square and rectangle indicate the earth, while the semi-circles and triangle represent the universe, and the continuous repetition of the same motifs refers to the rhythm in the world and in the universe. The circles with shared centers create imaginary spaces one after the other. All of them are related with the glory and beauty theories of the philosophy of Islam. In the geometrical ornamentations, which were applied on almost any type of materials, the richness of lines ends into unmatchingly varied compositions from one region to another. Despite the entire complexity, the geometrical compositions are perceived as a whole at first sight. Polygons, dovetails, star or cross motifs are not noticed separately. Calligraphy: In the Turkish and Islamic art, calligraphy was not used only for writing books; but it was also applied on stone in architectural ornamentation, as well as in other fine arts. The inscriptions and tablets were written with magnified scripts in order to be seen from a distance. The magnified calligraphy in architecture is named as “celi”. It should be considered as a style rather than being a type of calligraphy. Because, any types of calligraphies have a “celi”. “Sülüs celi” is the most commonly used one of them in architecture. It has been used so much that, the term “celi” became almost identical with “sülüs celi”. The “celi”s of “sülüs”, “nesih” and “talik” calligraphies are written. In the hands of the Ottoman calligraphers, celi went beyond being an element of calligraphy embellishment and became a unique branch of art on its own. The structures made of celi calligraphies reflect the creativity of the artist. - 8 - Celi calligraphy styles used in the Anatolian Seljuk architecture are “kufi”, “sülüs” and “maliki”. As the letters of maliki calligraphy are flat with corners, it is mostly used for embellishing bricks and mosaics. The maliki calligraphy on top of the pulpit door at Beyşehir Eşrefoğlu Mosque (1296) is one of the most elegant samples from the Seljukids’ era. Kufi was used widely as one of the earliest types of calligraphies, which appeared before the others. It was also applied as a monumental calligraphy in the Seljuk era. Bitlis Great Mosque (1110) manuscript, Konya Alaaddin Mosque’s mihrab border, dome frame of Karatay Madrasah (1251) have the examples of kufi scripts. The celi sülüs compositions applied in the Anatolian Seljuk era are highly diversified. Initially, the calligraphies were written on ornate backgrounds, for the first time outside of the decoration. Konya Sırçalı Madrasah’s (1242) main iwan (eyvan) belt, Ankara Aslanhane Mosque’s (1290) mihrab, and the calligraphies under main iwan belt of Karatay Madrasah were written with celi sülüs.