Painting on ceramic tiles

26/03/2010   by Kenan Surkovic
Art History
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One of the most advanced forms of Ottoman art is a painting on ceramic tiles. This form of decoration is a trademark of indoor decorating of Ottoman mosques and other buildings. Usually this was a large wall compositions.

The walls of Topkapi Palace, or rather the individual pavilions, were decorated with painted tiles, inside and outside. On the other hand, mosques have never been painted outside,  only internally.

The art of ceramic tiles was present in almost all periods of history of Islam. Seljucs in Anatolia and the Umayyads in Spain used painted plates more in the form of a mosaic in a geometric compositions, and the plates were of different shapes, while the Safavid, and Ottoman tiles Timurides were quite large, square shape and were treated as “background art” for different floral motifs. With Ottomans such art reached its peak in the 16th century. Later, it was largely neglected, particularly in the 18th and 19th century, when it come to the influence of European styles in Ottoman art.

Center for making tiles and other ceramic items, wasn’t in Istanbul, but in the city of Iznik (ancient Nicaea). Development of the Iznik tiles can be divided into three periods: the elder (from 1490 until 1525), the middle (from 1525 until 1535) and the late period ( 1550 until the early 18th century).

In all these periods motifs were floral tiles, mostly flowers. In the 16th century the hataji style was highly developed. That was painting that finds its expression in both the imaging plates as well as other types of Ottoman art. Hataji style implies a composition dominated by big motifs of the different types of flowers. These motifs are largely abstracted (stylized), and partly presented realistically, which is the characteristic of Ottoman art.

One such monument of that art, covered with tiles, is mihrab wall of the mosque of Mehmed-Pasha Sokolovic in Istanbul. The mosque was built by the famous architect Mimar Sinan in 1571. In addition to the mihrab, tiles cover the complete wall from floor to dome, along with two pandatifs. Large floral patterns painted in red, blue and green on a white background and white calligraphic prints are made on dark blue background. So the effects of contrasting colors are brought to the maximum, and the vividness of the whole composition enhances the dynamics of propagation of flower patterns.

All the beauty of this art is here pushed to the maximum, so the walls of the mosque of Mehmed-Pasha Sokolovic remain as an example of superior quality of Ottoman art.

Photo by Izzet Keribar. http://www.keribar.com/

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