Selected works from the Ottoman Calligraphy Collection of the Sabancı University’s Sakip Sabancı Museum are on exhibition at the Real Alcázar Palace in Seville during 4 April-15 June 2008. The Exhibition called The Ottoman Calligraphy from Sakip Sabancı Museum is implemented under the sponsorship of Sabancı Holding and El Legado Andalusi. With this exhibition consisting of 96 works from Ottoman calligraphers of late 15th Century and early 20th, the riches of the Ottoman calligraphy will be presented to the appreciation of the Europeans.
Having been established in year 2002, and exhibited comprehensively for the first time at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid, the Sakip Sabancı Museum’s Calligraphy Collection containing samples from the Ottoman calligraphers’ works created during a time span of 500 years will now meet with the Spanish art lovers at the Real Alcázar Palace in Seville. At the exhibition, works of many calligraphers such as, with Sheikh Hamdullah, the so-called founder of the Ottoman calligraphy, being above all, Shahzadah Korkut, Ahmed Karahisari, Dervish Ali, Hafiz Osman, Seyyid Abdullah of Yedikule, Mustafa Rakim, Kazasker Mustafa Izzet, and Sami Effendi will be on display. The exhibition also hosts tools used by the calligraphers.
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About the Exhibition...
· The majority of the 96 works containing calligraphy samples are Korans and prayer books.
· The second major group includes meshk (practice) and calligraphy albums.
· The third group consists of the tablets inscribed in Istanbul in large-size letters for hanging on walls in the 19th century where the European influence gradually became pervasive. The splendid works reflecting the Western influence in a different way, by adorning the spaces like a painting does, make their marks in the late Ottoman calligraphy.
· The exhibition also contains samples of the late Ottoman paintings/drawings, in order to display the usage of the celi writings on monuments.
· The last group of works in the exhibition consists of the handwritten official documents written with divani writings, bearing the sultans’ signature (tugra), which documents occupy a major position in the Ottoman calligraphy. Reflecting the administrative system of the state, and attracting attention with the artistic quality of the sultans’ signatures they bear and, with their letterings, these documents are exhibited in a chronological order.
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