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An enthrallingly display of Iznik ceramic tiles and flatware was exhibited at the Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv, Israel. Norman A. Rubin reviewed the exhibition that displayed the fascinating good reputation for the Iznik potters in addition to their magnificent craftsmanship.

In the sixteenth century, three Islamic empires were established in Western Asia and India. The oldest and largest of such empires was the Ottoman Turkish Empire, that have begun its expansion on the end with the thirteenth century.

The Ottoman Empire was a multinational entity whose cosmopolitan and polyglot court attracted artists and artisans within the patronage from the sultans. Working within the productive atmosphere of the court, they fashioned a new imperial style based on the legacy with the past. The court style, which in fact had been recently established within the duration of Mehmet the Conqueror (1451-1481) runs being a theme through various arts forms, including pottery.

The center of pottery production eventually moved to the town of Iznik, though court archives indicate that there still remained pottery studios inside the capital city of Istanbul. For this reason, it can be customary to use the name Iznik to designate all glazed pottery dating from the Ottoman period. Iznik pottery, one from the Ottomani decorative arts, demonstrate momentum and breathtaking beauty despite its simple materials; clay decorated with lead under glazed pigments.

"The celebrated 'RUM' tableware of Iznik is a lot more delightful in contrast to China and even more beautiful."
(Badr al-din-Ghazi, Arab wayfarer, 1530)

During the Byzantine era the pottery of Iznik was similar to the opposite pottery of Anatolia, but following the Turkish conquest it developed its distinctive style. Blue and white plates, bowls, vases, and lamps as well as other items were produced in Iznik within the fifteenth century, with floral designs. Moreover production expanded greatly because pottery workshops were turned into imperial tile manufacturing for that many grandiose palaces and monumental buildings.

COLOR AND DESIGN
In September 1514, as soon as the decisive victory with the Ottoman army within the Safavid rulers inside Battle of Caldran, many Persian artists and artisans flocked to Istanbul and joined the imperial workshops (nakkashane - Turkish). There they established the traditional Turkish kind of 'Saz' (enchanted forest - early Turkish), a design of consists of flowers arranged on delicate tendrils burgeoning with long serrated leaves. 'Saz' patterns were traced in some recoverable format and transferred to textiles and ceramics, produced in the imperial court workshops in Instanbul.

The style changed with the incorporation of floral Arabesques outlined on a cobalt-blue background intertwined with calligraphic ornamentation. Other designs began to emerge for the tiles and also other artifacts, mainly consisting of spiral scrolls derived through the stylized "TUGHRA" (imperial cipher) of Suleiman the Magnificent (c.1520-1566), which is often seen on state documents (Firmans).

Turquoise was included with the traditional Iznik palette of blue and white from the 1530's onwards. From the year 1540 onwards, mauve and purple also appears in Iznik designs, followed by along with pigments of green and exquisite coral red unique to Iznik pottery ware.

(Most of the colors were prepared from metal oxides; blue from
cobalt, brownish red from iron; green from copper and yellow from
antimony; off-white was the natural color of the glazed clay.)

Potters also began having an earthy red glaze referred to as "Iznik Red' or "Armenian Bole", a thick clay slip abundant in iron. (A rich variety of soft unctuous clays of varied colors was applied as pigments. The color red was predominant.). The thick, protuberant red glaze appeared to the first time in tiles for Sulieman's complex of mosques and palaces, finished in 1557.

During now the finest Iznik pottery and tiles were exuberantly decorated with flowers of all sorts inside a stylized floral designs referred to as "Hatay" (Cathay) with Chinese cloud patterns and geometric designs. Early Iznik fritware attempted to duplicate the hardness, whiteness and translucency of great importance and sought after near contemporary Chinese porcelain of the Yung and Ming dynasties (used often by the Ottoman rulers, which became a major part of their collection.)

But, inside the second quarter with the sixteenth century, earlier decorative styles were abandoned. The 'Cini' (Chinese patterns and stylized arabesques were replaced by patterns based on the local flora of Anatolia', primarily tulips (in Turkish, Lale, a name that incorporates the naming of "Allah" knowning that in the crescent "Hilal".)

IZNIK GLAZE
Around the twelfth century a revolution occurred inside ceramic technique of the Islamic potters; inspired through the Chinese porcelain. Imports of this duration of DING and QINBAI types demonstrated that 'Hatay' porcelain pieces are not of similar crafting with the previous periods. The fritware was lighter finely thrown, translucent with subtle molding under a thin transparent glaze. These could not be imitated by means in the thick opaque tin glaze over a clay body used during those times with the Ottoman craftsmen.

Instead the Islamic potters, led by the Persians, revived an ancient Egyptian technique, where synthetic body material was developed up from ground quartz which has a small admixture of white clay and glaze. The soft paste body was then paid by thin alkaline glaze. The 'frit' body was white translucent when thin and capable of an array of decorative techniques. The tiles and wares stood a fine white body, unequal to porcelain only in the softness, as well as a close-fitting brilliant glaze which allows an attractive range of colors.

It will be the invention of under glaze painting, however that was most important for the reputation ceramics. The under glaze painting technique required a glaze stable enough in order to avoid the pattern from blurring during firing; it was discovered in the use in the virtuous alkaline glaze coating (formulae unknown). For the first time the potters could paint freely directly on the frit body under a protective layer of glaze. The new alkaline glaze enabled the artisan to decorate the 'frit' ware with precision and delicacy. Also this
technique was without the disadvantages from the earlier lead-glaze wares, which involved great expense in fuel and labor.

The most impressive products in the Iznik potters of this period were pieces crafted inside the overglaze, a color or glaze used on the prevailing glaze. And not, prior to the establishment of potteries inside the west in the eighteenth century, was the selection of decorative techniques surpassed (even just in China).

MOTIFS AND SYMBOLS
Of each of the motifs underlying the symbolism mounted on objects, none recurs as frequently as that with the universe and world kingship. "God being the King with the world and 'the king' - whichever human ruler may be intended - 'the shadow of God on earth'" (Kasa'I Marvazi, 13th cent Persian poet) the entire world is symbolized in varied literature through the hemispherical dome that sky, as seen through the human eye, is constantly compared. Because early bowls might be hemis-
pherical, the sky was alternatively, known as in literature as the 'upturned bowl' (tas-i nigun) and a rotating dome (gunbad-I gardan). These two groups of images include the key and color on pottery vessels.

Every metaphor utilized in literature for sky may be matched in pottery (and metalwork). The 'turquoise dome' or 'azure dome' is echoed often times in the crafting of lapis lazuli Iznik pieces. The lotus dome (gunbad-i nilufari) a photo appears on bowls with chalice motifs about the underside. As time went through the lotus chalice gave way to an illusion of the flower or to one particular lotus blossom within a rosette. (Allusions to the dome of heaven might be made in the form of an encircled geometrical pattern.)

During the last quarter with the sixteenth century abstract forms were combined with the Iznik repertoire. They were seen as a a focal center and refracting outward, thus earning the name 'kaleidoscope' style. These designs did not reflect or resemble other Ottoman or Muslim symbolic themes. Also, functional vessels decorated in bright colors, represented a shot to go in the lucrative foreign market, thus putting aside the traditional motifs for that demands in the trade.

CONCLUSION
During the years 1603-1717, when Sultan Ahmet was building the Blue Mosque, Iznik wall tiles and functional vessels deteriorated in technical quality and in their aesthetic precision. This was because of conflict involving the Iznik potters and court authorities: Imperial orders limited production to court needs. In the middle of the 17th century, legal court removed its patronage through the Iznik potters and only tiles and pottery produced from the Armenian potters in Kutahya, northwestern Turkey. Armenian potters, not just crafted
exquisite tiles because of their churches, and also installed them in Turkish
mosques from your end from the 17th century.

REFERENCE
1) Exhibition and archives in the Museum of Islamic Art, Old City of
Jerusalem, Israel.

2) "The Enchanted Forest of Iznik" Irit Ziffer Catalogue - "Birds of
Paradise", Professor Nurith Kenaan Kedar - Eretz Israel Museum, Tel
Aviv, Israel.

3) The Aesthetics of Islam, A.S. Melikan-Chirvani - Ceramics, Oliver
Watson - Treasures of Islam, edited by Tony Falk, Arlines Books,
Philip Wilson Publishers, England.

4) Lords with the Golden Horn, Noel Barber - Arrow Books, London.

SIDEBAR - IZNIK WARE
Iznik, historically Nicaea, a town centered in northwestern Turkey along the shores of Lake Iznik. It was founded in 14th century BC by the Macedonian king Antigonus I Monophtalmus. The town was a significant center in the Late Roman and Byzantine times.

In Islamic culture, a college of Turkish pottery making that flowered through the entire sixteenth and also on to the seventeenth centuries. There may are already potteries at Iznik, where there was suitable clay, as early because the twelfth century, but it was not before late fifteenth century that Iznik pottery got into a unique.

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