Page 34 - The Age of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent

and the newly developed saz scrolls or the sprays of natural- of the figures, and certain features such as European types of
istic flowers. The same combination of decorative elements costumes, architecture, and sailing vessels, as well as the mar-
appears in the illuminations of religious texts, including pil- itime atlas and topographic genres, were developed by these
grimage documents and guides (see 22 and 23), which were artists. On the other hand a number of these features existed
illustrated with topographic renderings of the monuments as early as the 1490s and many were formulated by non-nak-
and sites based on eyewitness accounts. The nakka§hane also ka§hane artists, such as Piri Reis, Nasuh, and Nigari.
refurbished the texts of the esteemed calligraphers of the past, The fusion of the tremendous energy of the imperial paint-
such as Yakut and Abdullah Sayrafi (see 13 and 14), carefully ing studio with the traditions practiced by its members and
preserving the scripts and pasting them on folios embellished outside artists resulted in the creation of the most characteris-
with contemporary decorative themes. tic Ottoman genre, that of illustrated histories (see 37 and
It is the paintings in the literary manuscripts produced be- 41-43). This genre, which glorified the reign of the sultans,
tween the 1520s and 1550s that best reflect the heteroge- can be observed in some manuscripts produced for other
neous or eclectic nature of the nakka§hane, revealing both lo- Turkic dynasties, including the Timurids and the Mughals,
cal and foreign influences. Although a number of works but its persistence through the centuries with such a volumi-
show a conglomeration of several traditions, three styles of nous production was unique to the Ottoman Empire.
painting can be identified. The first reveals the impact of the The two major ingredients of illustrated histories, docu-
late-fifteenth-century Timurid school of Herat, which appears mentation of the settings and portrayal of historical person-
in unadulterated form in several volumes (see 31), while in ages, were definitely influenced by the paintings of three men
others it is blended with the style associated with the Akko- who worked outside the nakka§hane. The topographic and
yunlu court of Tabriz. Some of the paintings produced in the maritime scenes of Piri Reis (see 35 and 36) and Nasuh (see
Istanbul nakka^hane are indistinguishable from those made in 38-40) are not mere maps, but exquisitely rendered paint-
the Safavid capital of Tabriz (see 32), since both relied heav- ings with great artistic merit. Inspired to some extent by con-
ily on the Timurid and Akkoyunlu schools during their for- temporary European examples, their works established the
mative years in the early decades of the sixteenth century. concept of depicting geographical and architectural settings. Ni-
The second style reflects a newly developed local tradition, gari's interest in portraying the physical and at times even the
which was also influenced by the figure types and composi- psychological characteristics of his subjects (figs. 10 and 11)
tional schemes established in Timurid Herat. Characterized by also influenced the nakkachane artists. Although Ottoman
a decorative approach and limited pictorial cycle, it domi- portraiture was initiated during the reign of Mehmed II, who
nated the literary manuscripts until the 1550s (see 28 and invited such Italian artists as Gentile Bellini and Costanza da
29). Its disappearance coincided with the rise of illustrated Ferrara to his court, the impact of these Europeans was short-
15
histories, which overshadowed the production of literary texts lived and negligible. Nigari's portraits, on the other hand,
after the middle of the sixteenth century, showing a change were the product of a new local tradition. The nakka§hane
in taste and interest. artists absorbed these elements and employed them in their
The third style, found in literary manuscripts, developed pictorial narratives of historical works, which became the ma-
from within the nakka§hane. Inspired by the influx of out- jor preoccupation of the studio after the 1550s.
siders, it nevertheless retained its own identity and shows an A second and equally significant indigenous tradition is
acute awareness of local figures and settings, incorporating found in tinted drawings incorporated into albums. The evo-
them into the scenes (see 33 and 34). This type of localiza- lution of the Ottoman saz style is clearly observed in the rep-
tion can also be observed in the manuscripts produced in the resentations of elaborately intertwining flora, engulfing fan-
last Mamluk court in which classical texts were illustrated tastic creatures such as dragons and peris (see 45-49). The
with native ceremonial settings and architectural features. blossoms and leaves abstracted from these drawings came to
One foreign tradition that seems to have been lost within characterize the decorative vocabulary of the age. The mysti-
the nakkachane is that of eastern Europe. According to the cal and shamanistic concept of an enchanted forest inhabited
payroll registers, there were a substantial number of Bosnians by spirits hidden among the rocks and trees was of central
and several Hungarians, Austrians, Moldavians, and Albani- Asian origin and frequently represented in fifteenth-century
ans. Since the styles of painting practiced in these regions are drawings. It continued to be popular in the Timurid and
not well-known, the contributions of these artists are not as Akkoyunlu courts and was passed on to the Ottoman and
clearly visible as those of the painters from Herat and Tabriz. Safavid artists. The Ottomans, however, transformed it into a
Ottoman painting was basically an extension of the Islamic unique theme, which was employed in such diverse tech-
tradition, and European elements brought into the nakka§- niques as stone carving and weaving.
hane were soon obscured and absorbed. One could hypothe- The decorative vocabulary of the nakka§hane was ex-
size that the illusionistic settings with fields and cities placed tremely rich and diversified. In addition to the saz style the
in the background, the modeling and drapery used with some artists employed both the traditional floral scrolls, rumis, and

33