The Visual Impact of Colors in Ottoman Inscriptions: A Case Study of the Sultan Bayezid II Mosque in Didymóteichon, Greece

Ahmed Ameen, Yassmin Youssef Kasem

Abstract


This study undertakes a comprehensive examination of color as a distinctive and impactful feature in the artistic and architectural expressions of the Ottoman Empire, with a specific focus on its visual impact on historical inscriptions in Greece. By delving into the reasons and motivations underlying the Ottomans' extensive use of color, this research elucidates the effect it had on the viewer's perception and interpretation. Applying this analytical lens to the oldest extant Ottoman Mosque in Greece, the Sultan Bayezid II Mosque in Didymóteichon, the paper presents a nuanced exploration of the visual impact generated by color within the inscriptional elements of this significant edifice. The findings demonstrate how the Ottomans' strategic deployment of color, mainly through the skilful juxtaposition of contrasting hues and harmonious combinations, enhances the aesthetic appeal of the inscriptions, conveying a tangible sense of authority and captivating the viewer's attention. This research provides a novel perspective for understanding the sophisticated visual communication strategies employed in Ottoman epigraphy, underscoring the pivotal role of color as a crucial element in shaping the inscriptions' visual resonance and symbolic import. This study offers valuable insights into the cultural, aesthetic, and communicative dimensions of Ottoman visual culture by illuminating the multifaceted significance of chromatic expression within this artistic tradition.

Keywords


Ottoman Greece; Sultan Bayezid II Mosque in Didymóteichon; Islamic Epigraphy; Visual Impact; Colors; Red Color

Full Text:

PDF

References


[1] A. Ameen, “The Mehmet Khalil Agha Mosque in the Greek city of Drama”, SHEDET, Vol. 1, No.1, pp. 19-34, 2014. DOI: 10.36816/shedet.001.02

[2] A. Ameen, “Travelers' Works as an Important Source in Studying Archaeology in Light of the ‘Hadji ‘Ali Mosque’ of Athens,” SHEDET, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 6-22, 2015. DOI: 10.36816/shedet.003.07

[3] A. Ameen, “The Küçük Cami of Athens: Some considerations in the light of the Travelers' works,” Turcica, Vol. 47, pp. 73-97, 2016. DOI: 10.2143/TURC.47.0.3164942

[4] A. Ameen, Islamic Architecture in Greece: Mosques. Alexandria: Bibliotheca Alexandrina, 2017.

[5] A. Ameen, “Patrons of Ottoman Mosques in Greece reconsidered in light of the Ierapetra Mosque of Crete,” Journal of Islamic Architecture, Volume 5, Issue 3, pp. 137-144, June 2019. DOI: 10.18860/jia.v5i3.5365

[6] A. Ameen, “The Ottoman architecture in Greece then and now: Quantitative approach,” SHEDET, Vol. 6, No. 6, pp. 93-115 2019. Doi.10.36816/shedet.006.06

[7] A. Ameen, “The Ottoman bedestens in Greece,” SHEDET, Vol. 7, No. 7, pp. 115-144, 2020. DOI: 10.36816/SHEDET.2020.32863.1021

[8] A. Ameen, “Ottoman Waqf–Medreses in Greece “Archival & architectural study,” Journal of Architecture, Arts and Humanistic Science, Volume 6, No. 25, pp. 566-597, 2021. DOI: 10.21608/MJAF.2020.25255.1534

[9] A. Ameen, “The meaning of the Arabic dedicatory inscriptions of the Ottoman monuments of Greece, Journal of the Faculty of Archaeology-Cairo University, 2012, 1-16.

[10] A. Ameen, “Ed. Halit Eren; Prepared by Halit Eren, Mustafa OğUz, and Zekai Mete. Balkanlar’da Osmanli Vakiflari, Vakfiyeler Yunanistan.” SHEDET, Vol. 5, No. 5, pp. 224-229, 2018. Doi.10.36816/shedet.005.15

[11] A. Ameen, “Bilingual and trilingual inscriptions of the Ottoman buildings in Greece: a search for the history of late Ottoman period.” Abgadiyat, Vol. 14, pp. 208-243, 2019. https://doi.org/10.21608/abgad.2019.140483

[12] A. Ameen, “The significance of the Qur’anic quotation ‘Mā shā' Allāh’ on both Ottoman and Greek heritages in the Balkans, with a special reference to the extant inscriptions on Ottoman buildings in Greece,” EJARS, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 73-85, June–2020. DOI: 10.21608/ejars.2020.98963

[13] A. Ameen, “Towards a corpus of the inscriptions of Ottoman buildings in Greece,” Journal of Anthropological and Archaeological Sciences (JAAS), Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 36-46, 2019.

[14] A. Ameen, “Mamluk Ranks: Motives of usage and their visual impact,” Abydos annual peer-reviewed journal issued by the faculty of archaeology, Sohag University, Vol. 1, pp. 5-19, 2019, DOI: https://doi.org/10.21608/abidus.2019.223391

[15] D. J. Roxburgh “"The Eye Is Favored for Seeing the Writing's Form": On the Sensual and the Sensuous in Islamic Calligraphy,” Muqarnas, Vol. 25, pp. 275-298, 2008.

[16] H. M. alQaḥṭānī, “Calligraphy and Architecture: A Visual and Historical Analysis of the Most Important Manifestations of Arabic Calligraphy in Islamic Architecture.” Journal of Quranic Research and Studies, Vol. 4, No. 8, pp. 279-357, 2009.

[17] A. M. A. Ahmed, “Calligraphic Inscriptions on Cariene Architectural Heritage during the Mamluk Sultanate of Qalawūn (678-784 AH / 1279-1382 CE): A Visual and Artistic Study”, MA Thesis, 2019, Department of Islamic Archaeology, Faculty of Archaeology, Sohag University.

[18] E.H. Ayverdi, “Dimetoka'da Çelebi Sultan Mehmed Camii”. Vakıflar Dergisi 3, pp. 13–16, 1956

[19] E.H. Ayverdi, Osmanlı mimarisinde Çelebi ve II. Sultan Murad Devri, 806-855 (1403-1451). II. Istanbul: Baha Matbaası, 1972.

[20] E. H. Ayverdi, Avrupa'da Osmanli Mimari Eserleri IV: Bulgaristan, Yunanistan, Arnavutluk. Istanbul: Istanbul Fetih Cemiyeti, 1982.

[21] S. Eyice, “Çelebi Sultan Mehmed Camii. Yunanistan’da Dimetoka’da XV. yüzyıl başlarına ait cami.” TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi’nin, Vol. 8, pp. 262-263, 1993.

[22] M. Kiel, “Dimetoka. Yunanistan’da Trakya kesiminde eski bir Osmanlı kasabası”. TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi’nin 9, 1994, 305-308.

[23] M. Türkoğlu, “Meriç (Evros) vilayetindeki tarihi Türk eserleri,” Batı Trakya'nın Sesi, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 29-38, 1989

[25] İ. Bıçakçı, Yunanistan'da Türk mimari eserleri. İstanbul: Ircica, 2003.

[26] B. Yapar, Yunanistan’daki Türk Eserlerinde Kitabeler (Dedeağaç, Dimetoka, İskeçe, Gümülcine, Selanik, Kavala, Yenice-Karasu), Mimar Sinan Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü,Yüksek lisans tezi, İstanbul, 2007.

[28] E. Brouskari [ed.], Ottoman Architecture in Greece. Athens: Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Directorate of Byzantine; Post-Byzantine Antiquities, 2008.

[29] A. Riyāḍ, Formation in Visual Arts: A Study on the Psychology of Vision and Its Role in Eliciting Aesthetic Sensations, 3rdEd. Cairo: Dār alNahḍa alʿarabiya, 1995.

[30] M. M. Quṭb, et al. “Designing Advertisements: Between Visual Rhetoric and Visual Knowledge,” Journal of Architecture, Arts, and Humanities, Vol.11, No. 2, pp. 420-422, 2018.

[31] M. A. M. Sa’id, “Fundamentals of Aesthetics in the Design of Calligraphic Bands in Islamic Architecture,”Afaq Al-Thaqafah wa Al-Turath, Vol. 5, No. 20-21, April 1998.

[32] J. alḤanbalī, “Colors in the Noble Quran,” Al-Bayan, No. 42, October 2006.

[33] H. A. Motawea, “Colors and their significance in the Islamic civilization with application to the models of Arabic manuscripts,”Journal of the General Union of Arab Archaeologists, Vol. 18, pp. 418-450, 2017

[34] A. S. Faḍel, Colors, Qualities, and Characteristics, Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Babylon, 2015.

[35] H. Ṣ. Ḥāmid, “Color in Islamic architecture and its impact on interior design,” Journal of Architecture, Arts and Humanistic Science, Vol. 4, No. 4, pp. 582-598, 2019.

[36] H. Ṣ. A. AlMaʿddāwī, “The aesthetic and expressive values of the color element in Islamic mosaics (13th – 17thc.) and its impact on contemporary Arab Art”, MAThesis, Photography Department, Faculty of Fine Arts, Helwan University, 2009.

[37] M. R. A. Abdul Raḥmān, "The color and its use in modern photography", MA Thesis, 1983, Faculty of Fine Arts, Helwan University.

[38] D. N. Wilber, “The Role of Color in Architecture.” Journal of the American Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 17–22, 1942.

[39] L. S. S. AlJuhani, Design of Visual Materials: Techniques and Applications, Riyadh: Al-Obekan Publishing, 2018.

[40] F. B. Flood, The Great Mosque of Damascus: Studies on the Makings of an Umayyad Visual Culture, Brill, 2019.

[41] R. Irwin, Islamic Art in Context. Laurence King Publishing, 2021.

[43] G. Necipoglu, The Age of Sinan: Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire. Princeton University Press, 1995.

[44] D. J. Roxburgh, Turks: A Journey of a Thousand Years, 600-1600. Royal Academy of Arts, 2005.

[45] Y. Tabbaa, The Transformation of Islamic Art During the Sunni Revival. University of Washington Press, 1988.

[46] E. Çelebi, Seyahatnâme. Vol. 8. Istanbul: Bagdat Köşkü, 1680

[47] E. Çelebi, Evliyâ Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi. Edited by S. A. Kahraman, Y. Dağlı, and R. Dankoff. vol. 1. İstanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları. 2003.




DOI: https://doi.org/10.18860/jia.v8i4.27523

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2025 Ahmed Ameen, Yassmin Youssef Kasem

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

 

EDITORIAL OFFICE

Department of Architecture, Faculty of Science and Technology
Universitas Islam Negeri Maulana Malik Ibrahim Malang
Jalan Gajayana 50 Malang, Jawa Timur, Indonesia 65144
Phone (+62) 341 558933, Facsimile (+62) 341 558933
e-mail: journal.islamicarchitecture@gmail.com / jia@uin-malang.ac.id

 

 Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.