Ottoman decorative art Tezhip makes comeback

By Metin Demirsar

Istanbul (Dunya) – In Ottoman times, the sultans had court artists decorate their calligraphic invitations to foreign ambassadors for state receptions with beautiful borders, insignia, figurines, motifs and illustrations using 24-carat gold paint.
“This was a sign of respect that the sultan had for the foreign states and their rulers. It was also a flaunting of the Sultan’s wealth and power,” said Eda Sahan, 37, one of the last practitioners of the decorative art form known as Tezhip (gilding or illumination painting).

Fermans and berats, hand written writs and documents of the Sultan, prepared with Husnu Hat, or beautiful writing, miniature drawings of battle scenes and palace ceremonies inside books, Korans and sayings of the Prophet Mohammed, and religious prayers were also decorated with gold motifs.

From her fifth floor apartment residence in Atasehir, the newly developing financial district on the Asian side of the city, Ms. Sahan, a petite woman, is carrying out a revival of the Tezhip art She works painstaking hours, drawing illustrations and motifs on the borders of calligraphy, using paint formed from genuine gold, and decorating invitations to weddings and graduation ceremonies and antique furniture.

“Tezhip is the art of the Ottoman Palace, not the art of the common people,” Ms. Sahan expressed.

“This is a very expensive art,” Ms. Sahan says. “We have to use the gold paint sparingly because an ounce costs huge amounts of money.”
A tiny container of 24-carat gold paint costs TL80 (around $44.5).
In addition to the gold paint used, she says, calligraphers charge large amounts of money for their aesthetic writings, on which Ms. Sahan works her gilding decorations..

Tezhip form uses Arabic or Persian scripts or calligraphy as a base which is then highly decorated to create a wonderful lasting image. Calligraphy grew as an art form in Islam because painters were forbidden to draw human images, which was considered a sacrilege.  Only Allah could create men and women.

Making comeback
Tezhip is making a comeback under the moderately Islamist government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which has shown a deep interest in all forms of art developed by the Uighur, Seljuk, Ottoman Turks and under Islam.
Municipalities across Turkey run by the ruling conservative Justice and Development Party (AK Party) have opened public courses for Ebru, an old style of painting using running colors, miniature painting, calligraphy and Tezhip and other art forms from the Ottoman period.
“There is a deep interest in the Ottoman past and an attraction to return to it under the present government,” Ms. Sahan explained.

A graduate of Tezhip and book binding from the Istanbul Mimar Sinan University’s Faculty of Fine Arts, she teaches courses in the ancient art at various municipalities in Istanbul.  She is around the one of 20 experts in illumination painting in the country. Many of her students have studied under her for the past four or five years, she added.

She also has an MA in art management from Yeditepe University and has participated in a seminar in the art of selling art at San Francisco State University in California.

She is also an expert in paper restoration and conservation, having completed courses on repair work on Medieval volumes and old hand written books from the Florence Palazzo Spinelli in Italy and at Mimar Sinan University, and occasionally repairs old hand-written Korans.
But she is an expert in traditional and classical Turkish arts.

Unique art
Tezhip, Ms. Sahan adds, is a highly stylized and rigid form of art, governed by numerous rules.
The art, she adds, is unique, sourced from traditional forms rooted in Turkish fine art dating back as early as the Seljuk and Uighur periods.
“With Tezhip, we go back to our roots to our real values,” she stressed.
It often takes months to complete a single work.
In the past 13 years, she has had more than 25 individual and group exhibitions in Turkey, Florence, Bahrain and Paris.
Her works have covered gilding of Islamic prayers and tributes to the Prophet Mohammed.