The Ottomans (1281-1924)

May superlatives can be used to describe this Turkish dynasty: its territory was the vastest of all the dynasties which have governed in Islam, and its reign was the longest. It also de facto took over the Caliph reign after the disappearance of the last Abbasid Caliph in 1517 who took refuge in Cairo. It established Islam in western and central Europe and put an end to the Byzantine emperor with the seizure of Constantinople in 1453, which became Istanbul, seat of the Sublime Porte. The legend tells of its founder, Uthmân I, who created a small State in Bithnia in the border zone between the Seljuq sultanate of Rûm and Byzantium. The expansion towards the west – continental Greece, the Aegean islands, the Balkans and Hungary – started with the conquest of the European coast in 1352 and culminated with the siege of Vienna in 1683, without forgetting the domination of Asia Minor. Destabilised by the Tîmûr (Tamerlane) incursion in 1402, Ottoman power was re-established and commerce developed with Venice, Genoa and Ragusa. In 1516, the Ottomans took the provinces of Syria and Egypt from the Mamluks; they asserted themselves as defenders of the Sunni orthodoxy against the Safavids of Shiite Iran. As such, they extended their hegemony across the holy cities of Mecca and Medina and beyond, as far as Yemen. They also conquered Iraq and Baghdad and controlled or supported the Corsair principalities – also known as barbarian States – of North Africa.

The authority of power was concentrated on the Sultan himself, in a similar way to the Sun King of France. After a first offensive phase where the Sultan was present on the battlefield and during which Christian Europe, made fragile by dissent considered them as a plague, the Ottomans were able to exercise power in more peaceful conditions. With a few exceptions, this was the case of the descendants of Sulaymân II (Suleiman the Magnificent, 1520 - 1566) confronted by a post-Renaissance Europe which was now at the forefront of progress in science, art, war but also economics. One no longer expected the sovereign to intervene directly in government, which from then on was undertaken by the great viziers and dignitaries. In the nineteenth century, the ideals of the French Revolution influenced the emergence of nationalisms which in Greece and in the Balkans, as in the Near East rendered the Ottoman authority nominal before it dissolved during the First World War.

The Ottomans were relatively tolerant of the diversity of populations and beliefs present in their vast empire, and also welcomed the Jews who were fleeing the exactions of Christianity. A ruling class made up of non-Turks of Christian origin reinforced the societal dynamic and contributed to its development.

Ottoman pictorial art – through the illumination of manuscripts created in the workshop attached to the court – gives a faithful image of the lives of the sultans through the illustration of many historiographic narratives: chronicles of reigns, stories of feasts given on different occasions etc. Also of note was the topographic painting which gives an account of the military camps, in particular the pages attributed to Pîrî Re’îs in the sixteenth century. The Ottoman style summaries the contributions of painters hailing from the different provinces of the Empire and Persia, and can be characterised by documentary realism which uses bright colours. Portraits also hold an important position. Muhammad II (r. 1444 - 1481) summoned Italian painters and medallists to the Topkapi palace, such as Gentile Bellini, who consolidated this tradition by adapting it to the Islamic context with artists such as Sinân Bey. In the eighteenth century, under the reign of Ahmed III (r. 1703 - 1730), the influence of the naturalist approach of western painting is ostensible in research on perspective and the rendering of shadows, for example in the pages of  Lewnî.

Through Renaissance painting, we can also observe the Ottoman production of rugs and textiles. Lock-stitched rugs are divided into two types: those with geometric designs and stylised animal and vegetal motifs – abundantly reproduced in the canvases by Lotto or Holbein among others, who gave them their names – and those inspired by architecture and book art made up of medallions, stars and so-called “chintamani” motifs, produced in Ouchak in particular. The town of Bursa remains famous for its silks and velvets which are also depicted in the paintings and manuscripts which enable us to date them from the middle of the sixteenth century. These materials were at the centre of a rich trade and served as diplomatic gifts, mainly with Italy, as well as to decorate sacerdotal habits, besides of course the sultans’ sumptuous robes and those of their court.

Illustrated chronicles give an account of the organisation of craftsmen into guilds which would parade before the sultan. There you can see potters whose production based in Iznik was a strong element of Islamic ceramics. Square-shaped pieces of wall cladding (mosaics were abandoned and replaced by square or rectangular modules) evolved from a blue monochrome style – influenced by Chinese porcelain collected passionately by certain sultans – to a more coloured style, culminating with the use of red and floral patterns mixed with arabesques. In addition to the decoration of mosques, for example the Rustam Pacha mosque in Istanbul (1551), the restoration of the Dome of the Rock must be remembered, an undertaking ordered by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1564.

The refinery of the Ottoman court and its patronage resulted in excellence in leather and metal work; hence the weapons and armour admired by their enemies in Europe. Gold and silver decorated with precious stones were used together to make vases or cups, or to encrust pieces in hard stones.

Of course the empire occupied Syria and Egypt which had a prosperous glass industry – but the craftsman from which had been deported to Samarkand by Tamerlane – it was only in the nineteenth century that Ottoman pieces, from manufacturing in Beykoz among others started to spread throughout the Near East; in the meantime, glass from Venice then Bohemia were in grand vogue.

In terms of architecture, the seizure of Constantinople confronted the Ottomans with the Church of Saint Sophie which was a model that needed to be surpassed. The mosque with a large prayer room under a cupola carried by angle pillars and entered via a court bordered with a portico (there are no îwâns). Two, four or even six minarets with narrow pointed pinnacles punctuate with balconies complete the whole. The personality of Sinân eclipsed those of the other architects. His masterpiece remains the mosque of Sélîm II in Edirne (1570). These mosques were often part of large complexes grouping together educational, sanitary and charitable functions which were indicated by the principle of dome covering.

Instead of an organised and symmetrical plan, the Topkapi palace where the sultans lived after the seizure of Constantinople is characterised by a succession of pavilions: Çinili Kiosk (1472), Baghdâd Kiosk (1638). With the reign of Ahmed III, which celebrates the era of tulips which became a recurring motif in all decoration – while in Europe Turquerie was spreading – baroque and rococo influenced religious and civil constructions including public fountains (sabîl). In the nineteenth century, the palace of Dolmabahçe (1853) borrowed its Beaux-Arts style from contemporary European buildings. 

E. D.