Ottoman wars in oil paintings (14th-17th century)

Interacting with different civilizations from its foundation to its collapse, the Ottoman Empire, which has a military profile based on political, economic and social organization, made its name known with the wars for centuries. These wars, which occupy an important place in Turkish military history, have been an indicator of the fights put up against the enemies for many years. These wars sometimes brought victory and sometimes defeat as well, and made the Ottoman Empire a great power that dominated world history from the 14th century to the later 17th century. The best reflection of this can be seen on oil paintings on war, which are the representations of victories and defeats on canvas. Because the painting is a prominent tool documenting the historical background. Therefore, examining them in detail has great importance due to the fact that these works, which convey military narratives into visual language, has shown a contemporaneous development with the war scenes. In this thesis, in which the wars made their mark on Ottoman history from its foundation to 1699 were addressed through oil paintings by Western and Turkish painters, the identified war scenes were examined in chronological order considering their historical development. Accordingly, the text-picture relationship was established through the annals, the stylistic and iconographic features of the works were mentioned, and their contributions to the historical painting tradition were revealed. In the light of these developments, the opportunities offered by the Ottoman battle pieces to be described as a visual document were evaluated in line with new views and the results were shared through the war-themed paintings.