The medallion Zahriye page illumination analysis of Qurans from the Turkish and Islamic arts museum

ABSTRACTIllumination is the decoration of in manuscript books with gold and variousother paints using special design rules. The decorations of manuscripts arecalled ornament. The illuminated works are called illuminated pieces, the maleillumination artist are known as ?Müzehhip? and the female illumination artistsare knowns as ?Müzehhibe?. Among the illuminated pieces of art work are theQurans, caligraphy boards, religous,literary, scientific books; sultan?ssignatures, decrees and official documents.In the old days the illimunation work was mostly being done in theworkshops of the palaces, and rarely in various special workshops. Theillimunation, considered as the palace art had been largely influenced by theage?s social and political climate. Turkish illumination art?s historical phase canbe divided into ?Selchuk and Principalities? period, ?Early Ottoman? period,?Fatih? period, ?Ottoman classical? period, Ottoman Westernization? periodand it continues today in ?Turkish Republic? period. Since no moremanuscripts are produced, nowadays the illumination art continues in the formof decorative designs to be hanged on the walls and the caligraphy paneldecorations.The Qurans are the mostly illuminated pieces of art work. With theinfluence of slam which started to make its presence felt in Anatolia as early asthe 7th century, the illumination work has started in manuscript Qurans. As theKur-an is the wholly book of islam, special attention was paid to it?s paper,caligraphy, decoration , binders and its preparation was handled with mostcare.In the Qurans and in other manuscript books the mostly ilimunated pagesare the so callled ?Zahriye? pages. ?Zahriye? page is the first page after thebook?s cover. Usually, the ?Zahriye? page contains the illuminated region, thename of the book, the author?s and the owner?s names, the date it was purchased1by the library, a few verses or text and the seals. Sometimes the ?Zahriye? pageshave been left completely blank. In manuscripts various forms of the ?Zahriye?illumination samples such as rectangle, circle, medallion can be seen.Considering that the most intensive illumination samples are found on the?Zahriye? pages; the ?Zahriye? pages design rules, decoration and compositionproperties have been chosen as the general subject of our analysis.The scope ofour study has been limited to a type of ?Zahriye? illumination knowns as themedallion ?Zahriye? illumination. In our study 10 different in manuscriptQurans from the archives of the ?Istanbul Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum?have been analyzed. Our research consists of three sections, the first sectionconsists of two subsections, these are; the illuminated regions in the Qurans and?Zahriye? pages characteristics.Under the topic of the illuminated regions in theQurans brief information have been provided about the illuminated regions.Under the second topic ?Zahriye? pages characteristics, the position of the?Zahriye? pages in the Quran?s, their composition and decorationcharacteristics of the age they were produced in, have been described using thereal examples from manuscripts. In the second section, the 10 Qurans whichhave been selected as the main subject of our study, have been orderedaccording to their inventory numbers and a catalogue have been created. Thepieces of art work have been described using the information provided by themuseum inventory and coloured prints of ?Zahriye? pages pictures have beenprovided, following the decorations of the illuminations have been analyzed anddrawn in their original dimensions on transparent papers. A cross section ofeach of these ?Zahriye? pages have been coloured and depicted. In the thirdsection, there are two application examples. The first one of this is the?Zahriye? page reproduction of the art work with inventory number 45 in itsoriginal dimensions. The other application example is the genuine design of acircular ?Zahriye? page illumination.2