With the Turks conversion to Islam, it is thought that the 93rd verse of the Maide Sura, in the holy book of the Quran, although not certain, indicates the prohibition of depiction. With this thought, the way for geometric and floral pattern compositions in Turkish ornament art has been paved. In this context, deep meanings have been attributed to some plants in Turkish-Islamic Sufism. Tulip flower has taken its place in Turkish culture as an important flower attributed to Allah. The tulip flower, which lived a wild life in the steppes of Central Asia, migrated to Anatolia with the Turks in the 12th century. The tulip pattern was first seen in the Seljuk Empire buildings in Anatolia. However, the motif is commonly seen in 16th century Classical Ottoman period buildings and traditional handicrafts.Tulip flower increased its cultural diversity with the method of selection and hybridization during the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent and caused almost a change in the economic and sociological structure of the Ottoman state in the 18th century. Due to this change, Sultan III. Ahmed;s time went down in history as the Tulip Era. The tulip motif was embroidered in the same form as it is in nature in tile, ceramics, book and weaving arts, especially in the second half of the 16th century, with the naturalistic style of Kara Memi, who was a head muralist in the Ottoman Palace.The nauralist tulip of Kara Memi was used in different and non-repetitive schemes on the armchairs and "halkar"s of the sultan divans, sometimes as the main theme and sometimes as an auxiliary motif in the important works of Sultan Süleyman. Based on the schemes of these works, it is seen that the tulip motif was used in different forms and schemes in the period until the 16th and 19th centuries. The tulip, the favorite motif of the Kara Memi School, was in a naturalist style, as a single crown on a single branch, bulging from the bottom and narrowing towards the top in the 16thcentury. The crochet parts of these forms in the 16th century are open in some examples and closed in others. The motif turned into a stylized spike form in the 18th century. Later, in the 19th century, the open crochet sections were kept wide to the navel, a return to the elegant tulip motif forms described in the 16th century with open crochet. |