Ottoman-style miniatures

One of the classes available to the students was on Ottoman and Turkish miniatures.  Probably some of our readers have seen Persian miniatures, but these were also made in Turkey and the Ottoman Empire.  They are tiny detailed paintings of the daily lives of the people, life in the Ottoman court, stories from the scriptures, and other familiar topics.  The current tradition involves starting with a page from an old Ottoman book and then painting a miniature painting onto the page.  These pages can be purchased from the booksellers bazaar.  Some old Ottoman books are still available for sale, but others have been too badly damaged to be preserved whole.  These books in which a lot of the pages have been damaged are sometimes worth more when the undamaged pages are sold page by page.  A page of Ottoman text from an original manuscript starts about about $1 and goes up in price depending on the age, quality, etc.  These pages are now used as the foundation for painted miniatures.

My favorite contemporary miniature artist is Nusret Çolpan, who died a few years ago.  He created a number of paintings of Istanbul that blend the traditional miniature style with a more contemporary look.  Here's one of them to give you an idea of his work:

Aya Sofya in the snow

In any case, several of the students learned to paint miniatures, and I was quite impressed with their work.  I don't have a photo of Hew's final project, but it's worth asking him to see it, because it is impressive.  Here is Rachel's work:

Pretty amazing!  Rachel is quite a miniature artist. The tree on the right side has roots reaching down to entangle the evil eye.