Iznik Turkish Ceramics

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History & Iznik around the world

Figure 1

Many areas of artistic production enjoyed a renewal of forms in the second half of the fifteenth century, following the Fall of Constantinople and the establishment of the Ottoman Court in the former capital of the Byzantine Empire. These changes reflected the fuller involvement of a court whose patronage was particularly evident in book arts, metalwork and in the textile industry. This courtly demand also have given rise to the production of ceramic wares towards the end of the reign of Mehmed II, the Conqueror (figure 1).

This production of high-quality ceramics was to endure in the sixteenth century, before the onset of a period of decline throughout the seventeenth century. These high-quality ceramic wares were referred to as “çini” in Ottoman documents. Çini with new and innovative design vocabulary were intended for the domestic market of the Ottoman Empire, especially to the taste of the new elite eager for luxury objects. With their perfection of form, technique and pattern programs,These ceramics were also soon exported outside of the Empire, to Europe in particular, where the exported wares would give rise to local imitations.

Iznik, a province of the city Bursa in Turkey, was the main centre of production. Iznik was historically known as Nicaea from which its modern name also derives. This is why these ceramics are also known as Iznik-ware around the world. Such ceramic wares were also produced in the city of Kütahya, as is borne out by finds from excavations carried out there. Istanbul has also been the site of sporadic productions directly linked to commissions from the court (figure 2).

Figure 2

Changes and evolution of Iznik Ceramics

Figure 3

The golden age of Iznik ceramic wares covered the whole of the sixteenth century, undergoing much formal evolution and enjoying increasing diversification of its decorative repertoire, with decline setting in from the early seventeenth century onward. Despite the lack of dated items, art historians have managed to piece together a relative chronology of the evolution of Iznik ceramics, bringing out the stylistic phases and delimiting the emergence of certain forms.

Between 1480 and 1520, cobalt blue was the predominant decorative hue, with different concentrations of the same pigment being used to obtain many shades of blue (figure 3). This initial phase was dominated stylistically by a combination of stylized vegetal forms specific to the Islamic repertoire called rumi in reference to the Seljukids of Rum, and of floral motifs known as hatayi inspired by Chinese art (China being Hatay in Ottoman).

Figure 4

Towards the late 1520s, turquoise, obtained from copper oxide, was associated with the cobalt blue (figure 4). With the diversification of Iznik’s ceramic repertoire, several styles were to coexist between 1530-40: the tugrakes spiral style inspired by the illuminations covering imperial monograms; the “potters’ style” that included novel features such as a new floral thematic register; or a series of pieces imitating Chinese models to a greater or lesser degree of fidelity. This wave of Chinese inspiration was apparent in the introduction of themes such as the three bunches of grapes, the lotus bouquet, and the floral spiralling scrollwork in reserve on the center of dishes that would be constantly reinterpreted over the following decades. While Safavid ceramicists gladly adopted the figurative animal repertoire or landscape elements from the genre scenes of Chinese ceramic wares, Ottoman ceramicists favoured compositional schemes and a host of secondary motifs, wave borders, meander scrollwork, rosettes, lotus petals, etc.

During the 1540s, the colour palette of Iznik ceramics was distinctly enriched with a green ranging from sage to olive, and a manganese oxide-based aubergine mauve. This period is still sometimes referred to as the “Damascus phase” as this colour scheme is similar to that found in tiles and vessels produced in Damascus in the Ottoman era (figure 5). During this first polychrome phase the influence of the saz drawings is more clearly discernible. Developed by Şahkulu, a designer native to Tabriz and in the court’s employ since 1525, this style found its finest expression in ink drawings showing exuberant vegetal compositions that include composite flowers and highly intricate versions of the lotus blossoms and peonies of Chinese art, associated with long serrated leaves known as hançeri as their long curve is reminiscent of a dagger (hançer in Turkish). Tulips, carnations, hyacinths, and violets, highly prized by the Ottoman elite with a passion for horticulture, are gradually used to enrich saz compositions.

Figure 5

In the third quarter of the century, this naturalistic floral repertoire, called sukufe in Turkish, came to predominate, asserting itself along with a new colour scheme based on the combination of bright tomato red in slight relief obtained from iron oxide, and a very fine emerald green.

Figure 6

In the last three decades of the sixteenth century, a highly diversified repertoire was also to find expression through such colourings: abstract compositions, sometimes set on fish-scale grounds, figurative scenes with animals or boats, etc (figure 6). This was a highly prolific period, yet one that was to be swiftly followed by a period of slow decline at the turn of the seventeenth century. Continually reworked, inspirations from the past became hackneyed, and these clumsy versions with their increasingly perceptible loss of quality were no longer comparable with the creations of the previous century.

İznik Tilework

Iznik tile production started to boom around the mid-sixteenth century and was stimulated and controlled by court commissions. Iznik was the main production center of underglaze painted tiles, but the city of Kütahya was to flourish throughout the seventeenth century. Many archival documents testify to the link between Iznik workshops and the court.

Ceramicists working in Istanbul appear to have played an important role before the mid-sixteenth century. Archive documents testify to the existence of a certain number of tilemakers (kaşigeran) at that time among the craftsmen directly attached to the court (ehl-i hiref), whereas their number would become insignificant in the second half of the century. These craftsmen produced both underglaze painted and cuerda seca tiles. The technique of cuerda seca, which appeared towards the late fourteenth century in Central Asia, had already been used in the fifteenth century in monuments of early Ottoman art, through the intervention of craftsmen who had been trained in this technique at the Timurid court. It enjoyed renewed favor shortly after Selim I captured Tabriz, once again impelled by craftsmen of Iranian extraction. These cuerda seca designs are attributed to a group overseen by a certain Habib of Tabriz, then by his successor Usta Ali, both mentioned in the archives of the Topkapi Palace. This technique, which is to be found on several buildings in Istanbul, attained the height of its perfection with the interior decoration of the tomb of the Sehzade Mehmet (1445-48). Shortly after this mausoleum decoration was produced, this technique went out of fashion, to be supplanted by underglaze painted designs. The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem was the last large building project to feature it.

In Istanbul, the same group of ceramicists may have produced underglaze painted tiles intended to decorate pavilions built in the Topkapi Palace. Some of them bear some relation to the decoration of cuerda seca tilework; in particular, they share a repertoire of motifs that appear to be executed in the stencil style. The most remarkable achievements that can be attributed to these workshops are two monumental plaques reused in the seventeenth century on the façade of the Sünnet Odasi (Circumcision Room) featuring a saz landscape peopled with fabulous beasts. The perfection of the drawing is probably due to the intervention of a designer from the imperial nakkashane – perhaps Sahkulu himself. The coloring is still limited here to cobalt blue and turquoise, and matches that of contemporaneous Iznik ceramic wares.

From the early sixteenth century onward Iznik craftsmen would also have produced tiles, sporadically and still on a very limited scale. The tiles of the mausoleum of Sehzade Mahmud (around 1506), very close to the style of Baba Nakkas pottery wares, are one example attesting to this output. In the latter half of the sixteenth century, when commissions for underglaze painted tiles came flooding into Iznik workshops, their designs and color schemes evolved in accordance with those of ceramic vessels. One part of the repertoire was firmly rooted in the tradition of architectural tilework, with “stencil-style” motifs, while elements characteristic of the saz and sukufe registers found on vessels were also in evidence. Red was first seen in the tilework decoration of the Süleymaniye (completed in 1559) and provides a benchmark for dating vessels bearing this color. Then was to begin a golden age with a succession of large building initiatives that gave rise to unique decorative programs in which tilework would match painted work (kalem isi) or exterior designs carved in stone: the Rüstem Pasa Mosque (circa 1561), the Sokollu Mehmed Pasa Mosque (1572), or the mausoleums of Roxelane (1558), Süleyman the Magnificent (1566), or Selim II (1572).

These ceramic designs, like the Ottoman architectural style that came to assert itself in these provincial towns, are all echoes of the evolution of forms and tastes that spread from the capital of the Empire to the provinces. Craftsmen from Iznik would execute the decorations of the monuments of Antalya, Aleppo, or Diyarbakir locally. The color palette characteristic of Iznik wares recurs here, yet with slight differences: a less rigorous symmetry, a more irregular grid, different standards of sizes, and a glaze of lesser quality.

In the city of Damascus, a more original production, nonetheless influenced by the decorative repertoire of Iznik tiles, came into being shortly after the renovation of the Dome of the Rock. Some of the craftsmen who worked on the restoration of this prestigious monument may then have gone on to settle in Damascus, where they made the tiles destined for the pious foundations constructed in this city by Süleyman the Magnificent or high-ranking Ottoman dignitaries. One of the first constructions was the mosque of Süleyman the Magnificent built around 1550-54. It revealed for the first time tilework inspired by Istanbul creations but in a color palette that was subsequently to mark Damascene production: turquoise blue, chrome green, and aubergine brown. The Damascene color palette – which is also that of Iznik wares from the 1540s and 1550s – is a color scheme that was already found in the Mamluke era.