Ottoman Art and Music: Miniatures, Calligraphy, Ceramics, and the Mehter Band

The Ottoman artistic tradition occupied a distinct place in the early modern world, drawing on the heritage of Persian, Arab, and Byzantine art and the tastes of a multi-confessional imperial court. It produced a body of miniature painting, calligraphy, ceramics, textiles, and metalwork that became a recognizable idiom across Eurasia. In music, the Ottomans developed a sophisticated classical tradition, a vigorous folk tradition, a rich Sufi repertoire, and the famous Mehter military band. This article surveys the main forms, periods, and works of Ottoman art and music, and complements the broader overview of Ottoman society and culture and the architectural context in Ottoman architecture.

Key dates

c. 1413 — Establishment of the imperial nakkaşhane in the Topkapı Palace.
1436–1520 — Şeyh Hamdullah, founder of the Ottoman calligraphic school.
1520–1566 — Classical age; the miniature and calligraphic traditions reach full maturity.
1584–1591 — The Hünername, the great illustrated chronicle of the Süleymanid festivals.
1640–1712 — Buhurizade Mustafa Itrî, the most celebrated of Ottoman composers.
1720 — The Surname-i Vehbi; Levni’s album of the circumcision festival of Ahmed III’s sons.
1778–1846 — Dede Efendi, master of the classical Ottoman vocal form.
1826 — The Auspicious Incident; abolition of the Janissary corps and the Mehter band.
1871–1916 — Tanburi Cemil Bey, the last great Ottoman classical instrumentalist.

Miniature painting

The Ottoman miniature — a small, detailed, brightly colored painting on paper — was the principal form of figural art at the Ottoman court. It grew out of a long Persian and Arab tradition, but it developed its own characteristic features: a high horizon, a vivid palette, a taste for large crowd scenes, and a careful attention to costume, architecture, and topography. Emine Fetvaci’s Painting the Ottoman World (2018) is the standard modern account, and her point is worth quoting in spirit: the Ottoman miniature is not a poor cousin of the European oil painting tradition; it is a distinct art with its own conventions, its own painters’ workshops, and its own patrons.

The earliest Ottoman miniatures were illustrations in the manuscripts of the imperial library. The Hünername (1584–91), the Surname-i Vehbi (1720), and the great historical chronicles of the reign of Süleyman are the most important collections. The Nakkaşhane, the imperial studio of painters, was established in the late 15th century and was active until the 17th. It was, importantly, a multi-confessional workshop: Armenian, Greek, Jewish, and Muslim painters all worked in it, and the religious diversity of the imperial studio is one of the things that makes the tradition distinctive. Many of the manuscripts it illustrated were commissioned by the sultans whose family is described in the dedicated article.

The great Ottoman miniature painters — Nakkaş Sinanbey and his students in the 16th century, Levni (Abdülcelil Çelebi) in the early 18th — are known by their pen names. Levni’s miniatures in the Surname-i Vehbi are remarkable for their portraits of the figures of the Tulip Period, their sense of color, and their accurate rendering of fabric and light.

“I, Levni the painter, have set down in this book the likenesses of the lords of the age, the grandees, the ladies of the harem, and the guildsmen of the city, so that whoever looks upon these pages may see the festival of 1720 as if he had been there himself.” — Levni, preface to the Surname-i Vehbi (1720)

The miniature tradition declined in the 19th century, as European pictorial conventions came to dominate the imperial school. The final flowering of the Ottoman miniature is the Levni album of 1720.

Calligraphy

Calligraphy was the most prestigious of the Ottoman arts. The Qur’an, the hadith, the imperial edicts, the architectural inscriptions, the imperial seals, the coins, the documents of the bureaucracy, and the dedications of the great libraries were all in the hand of a calligrapher, and the most important calligraphers were celebrated as the leading artists of the empire. The painter’s standing was high but the calligrapher’s was higher, and the Ottoman courts in particular elevated the calligrapher to a rank reserved in Europe for the painter.

Ottoman calligraphy was written in the six principal scripts of the Islamic tradition: kufic (used principally for architectural inscriptions in the early period), nesih (the principal hand for copying the Qur’an), sülüs (used for monumental inscriptions), divani (a stylized hand of the chancellery), rik’a (a hand of the bureaucracy), and ta’lik (a Persian hand used in the eastern provinces).

The earliest Ottoman calligrapher was Şeyh Hamdullah (1436–1520), the founder of the Ottoman calligraphic tradition. He reformed the nesih and sülüs hands in a distinctively Ottoman direction, and he trained a generation of students who became the calligraphers of the Süleymaniye and the Selimiye. Hafiz Osman (1642–1698) refined the nesih hand further, and Mustafa Râkım (1757–1826) developed the monumental sülüs used for the imperial inscriptions of the 19th century. The tradition continued into the 20th century in the work of the calligrapher Sâmi Efendi and his students, and Ottoman calligraphy is still actively practiced in Turkey and the Islamic world today.

The tools of the calligrapher were the kalem (pen, generally made of dried reed), the mürekkep (ink, made of soot, gum arabic, and water), the kâğıt (paper), the makta (a slanted desk), and the tezhip (illumination) and ezhar (floral ornament) that often accompanied the writing in a great Qur’an or an imperial document.

Ceramics, tiles, the Iznik tradition

The most celebrated Ottoman ceramic tradition is Iznik ware, the brilliant white, polychromatically painted ceramic produced in the town of Iznik (Nicaea) from the late 15th to the 17th century. Walter B. Denny’s Iznik: The Artistry of Ottoman Ceramics (2004) is the standard monograph; his point that Iznik should be read as a court-directed industry rather than a folk tradition is, in my view, the most important modern contribution to the subject.

Iznik ware is recognizable by its white slip ground, its clear colors — the famous “Armenian bole” red, the emerald green, the cobalt blue, and the yellow — and its motifs: tulips, carnations, hyacinths, roses, cloud bands, and arabesque scrolls. The earliest Iznik ware, from the late 15th century, was a kind of Miletus ware, with dark blue motifs on a white ground. By the 16th century, the Iznik potters had developed the polychrome palette of the classic period, and the tiles produced for the Süleymaniye, the Rüstem Pasha Mosque, and the Sokollu Mehmed Pasha Mosque are among the greatest decorative achievements of the empire. The classical Iznik tradition declined in the 17th century, and by the 18th century the Iznik kilns had been largely replaced by the Kütahya tradition of more mildly decorated, white-ground ware.

Other ceramic traditions include the Kütahya ware, the Çanakkale ware, and the simpler red-clay pottery of the village. The Ottoman potters produced both tiles — used as wall decoration in mosques, palaces, and houses — and vessels: dishes, plates, bowls, and jugs in the classic Iznik style.

Carpets, textiles, the applied arts

The Ottoman carpet tradition is among the most famous in the world. The Ushak (Uşak) carpets of western Anatolia, the Hereke carpets of the imperial workshops near Istanbul, the Bergama carpets of the Aegean, the Kula carpets of the interior, the Ghiordes (Gördes) carpets of the Marmara region, and the prayer rugs of the Mucur and Ladik regions are the principal varieties. The earliest surviving Ottoman carpets are from the 15th century, and the great carpets of the imperial mosques — particularly the huge Ushak carpets of the Süleymaniye and the Selimiye — are among the largest and most ambitious carpets ever woven.

The silk and velvet textiles of Istanbul, Bursa, and Edirne were equally celebrated. The kumaş — the brocaded silk — was used for the caftans of the sultan, the robes of officials, the curtains of the palace, and the coverings of the tombs. The most important weaving centers were Istanbul, Bursa, and Edirne, and the velvet of Bursa, the silk of Edirne, and the brocade of Istanbul were exported across the empire and beyond.

The metalwork tradition was also rich. The tomruk, the great bronze mortar of the palace; the sini, the large metal tray; the güğüm, the ewer; the ibrik, the water jug; the kandil, the lamp; and the çeşme, the fountain spout, were all made of bronze, brass, copper, or silver, and they were often inlaid with silver, gold, or arabesques. The Ottoman clock and watchmaking tradition of the 17th and 18th centuries produced some of the most elaborate mechanical objects of the early modern world.

Classical Turkish music

Ottoman classical music — called Türk sanat müziği — was a sophisticated modal tradition based on the makam scales, the usul rhythmic cycles, and a repertoire of instrumental and vocal forms developed over several centuries. Walter Feldman’s Music of the Ottoman Court (1996) is the standard scholarly treatment in English, and Cem Behar’s work on the late Ottoman musical life is essential for the 19th century.

The principal instruments were the ney (reed flute), the tanbur (long-necked lute), the kanun (zither), the kemençe (three-stringed fiddle), the ud (short-necked lute), the def (frame drum), and the human voice. The classical tradition was performed in the palace, in the homes of the wealthy, in the Mevlevi lodges, and in the great private music rooms of the elite. The fasıl — the long suite of instrumental and vocal pieces that constituted the principal performance form — lasted for hours, and the major concerts of the elite Ottoman households were major social events that included food, drink, and the company of poets, scholars, and divines.

The principal vocal forms were the beste (long metric composition), the kar (a large metric form in a heavy usul), the semai (in a lighter usul), the şarkı (a lighter, more popular form that developed in the 18th century), and the gazel (an unmeasured vocal form sung to a poem, usually in the meters of classical Persian or Ottoman lyric poetry). The principal instrumental forms were the peşrev (an instrumental prelude in a heavy usul, generally in four movements) and the saz semaisi (an instrumental piece in a lighter usul, generally in four movements).

The great composers

The earliest Ottoman composers were influenced by the Persian and Arab traditions of the eastern Islamic world, but by the 17th century a distinctly Ottoman classical style had emerged. The great composers of the tradition include:

Buhurizade Mustafa Itrî (c. 1640–1712), the most celebrated of all Ottoman composers. His Neva Kâr — a vocal composition in the makam of the same name, in the birinci or “first” usul of 24 beats — is, in practical terms, the unofficial anthem of Ottoman classical music and is still performed at the opening of Turkish classical music concerts. His Segâh Kâr, in the makam of Segâh, is the other great Itrî work in the standard repertoire.
Dede Efendi (1778–1846), the master of the classical Ottoman vocal form, a prolific composer of bestes, semais, and şarkıs, and the leading court musician under Selim III and Mahmud II.
Tanburi Cemil Bey (1871–1916), the last great Ottoman classical instrumentalist and the first major figure to record the tradition on disc. He played the tanbur, the kemençe, and the kanun with a technical command and an emotional intensity that his contemporaries described as unprecedented; his recordings, made in the first decade of the 20th century, remain the earliest extended documentation of the Ottoman classical style.

Folk and Mevlevi music

The folk music of the Ottoman countryside was a different kind of tradition, in which the long-necked saz (bağlama), the davul (bass drum), the zurna (shawm), and the human voice were the principal instruments. The folk songs of the empire — the songs of the terekeme of the east, the Yörük of Anatolia, the peasantry of the Balkans, the Arab, Kurdish, and Turkish nomads — formed a vast repertoire that was recorded in the 19th and 20th centuries by folk-song collectors and that has remained an important part of the popular musical heritage of the modern successor states.

The Mevlevi Sufi order of the followers of the poet Rumi developed a sophisticated musical repertoire of its own, performed in the semahane of the Mevlevi lodge to the accompaniment of the ney, the kudüm (small kettle drum), and the human voice. The opening of Rumi’s Masnavi — “Listen to this reed, how it complains, telling a tale of separations…” — is the foundational text of the Mevlevi tradition, and the ney, the reed flute, is the instrument of the Masnavi. The Mevlevi music was the most philosophically serious of the Ottoman musical traditions, and it was also the most influential on the classical tradition of the court.

“Listen to this reed, how it complains, telling a tale of separations, saying: ‘Ever since I was cut from the reed-bed, my voice has made men and women weep. I seek a heart torn by separation, that I may unfold the pain of love.’” — Rumi, Masnavi, Book I, opening lines (c. 1258–1273), translated by A. J. Arberry

The Mehter band

The Mehter band was the official military band of the Ottoman army. It performed at the head of the army on the march, at the gates of conquered cities, at the accession of a new sultan, at the religious festivals, and at the major state ceremonies, and its music was the public music of the empire.

The instruments of the Mehter band were the davul (bass drum), the nakkare (small kettledrum), the zurna (shawm), the boru (long trumpet), the kös (very large kettledrum), the çevgan (policeman’s staff with jingles), and the zil (cymbal). The music was loud, march-like, and rhythmically driving, and it was intended to inspire the troops, to impress the enemy, and to mark the presence of the sultan.

The Mehter band was abolished in 1826, when the Janissary corps itself was abolished in the Auspicious Incident, but it was revived in the 20th century as a state ceremonial band, and it still performs at official occasions in Turkey today. Its music had a profound influence on European military music in the 18th and 19th centuries: a number of Ottoman march tunes were adopted by European armies, and the “Turkish” style is recognizable in a number of major works of the period — Mozart’s Piano Sonata in A major K. 331 (the “Alla Turca” finale), Beethoven’s Wellington’s Victory (the “Battle Symphony”), and Haydn’s Symphony No. 100 (the “Military”) are the best-known examples.