A study on single female figures in the works of Abdullah Buharı and Ömer Faruk Atabek

Miniature is a branch of art that emerged to decorate manuscript books or explain the text. This art has developed greatly, starting in Central Asia, in the Islamic world, and especially in the Ottoman Empire. Miniatures, depicted in small size and detail, shed light on all social events and are documents for the female figure. The female image in Turkish miniature art has been depicted in different ways in different periods, different geographies, and different beliefs and cultures throughout history. Starting from the Uyghurs and extending to the present day, female figures bear the traces of artistic and cultural changes and have shown themselves in various ways in religious themes, literary works, palaces, and daily life scenes. In this thesis, the female figure in the miniatures of 18th-century Abdullah Buhârî and 20th-century Ömer Faruk Atabek is discussed. In the study, taking as reference the female figures in the miniatures made by two different artists, the characteristics of women's lives, social status, and clothing were tried to be determined. The figures were examined depending on the aesthetic, cultural, and social conditions of the period. The periodic and socio-cultural differences between Abdullah Buhârî's 18th-century palace female figures and Ömer Faruk Atabek's 20th-century rural female figures were compared by examining the way these figures were handled in the artists' works. Through this comparison, the elegant clothes and jewelry of the 18thcentury palace women and urban women and the simple life and functional clothes of rural women were evaluated, and how the representation of women in art changed in the context of the socio-cultural structure was revealed.