Ottoman Minor Arts
Keys to a vernacular culture OTTOMAN MINOR ARTS If you wish to delve deeply into the vernacular culture of a society or civilisation, you must look not only at its architecture, liteature and music, but at its minor arts. You must observe closely the details, colors and forms of the door leading into a house, […]
Calligraphy in Ottoman Arts
Mysterious power of the pen OTTOMAN CALLIGRAPHY Since Islam frowned upon representation in painting and sculpture , artistic creativity turned to other plastic forms of visual expression. Writing is the oldest of these forms, and the most profound and esoteric. Writing is the most abstract manifestation of language, giving material form to concepts, knowledge, ideas, […]
The Sema Ritual
Sema or whirling is part of the inspiration of Mevlana M. Celaleddin-i Rumi, famous mystic thinker and turkish human poet of 13 th century He invite us to unity,to toleration, to God love, the God of all of us and to manldnd love whithout discrimination of religions, races and social classes… When we examine Seinft […]
The Pomegranate as a Symbol
Almost all the great religions of the world have sanctified the pomegranate and ascribed manifold meanings to it. The mythology of ancient Greece regarded this fruit as the symbol of life, marnage and rebirth in the abduction story of Persephone by Hades, the god of the underworld. The pomegranate fruit is assumed to have originated […]
About Turkish Arts
Although our website offers “Turkish art and antiques”, these terms are our modern (and somewhat generalized) way of referring to art forms that can be separately identified, or broken down into more specific groupings. These groupings are not just the most obvious ones, such as the categories we have chosen to display on our main […]
