CALLIGRAPHY – HÜSN-İ HAT

Having started from prehistoric ages and collecting the traces of various religions, climates, geographies and civilizations, Turkish arts have reached a brand new synthesis in the framework of Islam civilizations.

Reaching far to our day, Gokturk Scripts are the product of a developed and great civilization in Central Asia as documents that indicate how advanced writing arts and culture were in Turkish civilizations.
Uyghur script lived in Central Asia for ages as the language of culture and arts. Based on this ancient culture and arts tradition, Turks continued to play a historical role in the development of Islamic scripts after their conversion to Islam by training great masters that realized the most important development steps of Islamic scripts (1).

Hüsn-i Hat refers to ‘artistic writing’ or ‘beautiful writing’. This simple form of writing came from Phoenicians, used by the Nabat tribe and then passed on to Arabs. Combined with the different senses of culture and aesthetics of communities that newly adopted Islam, this form of writing reached perfection upon twelve ages of development and became the one and only writing form with the highest aesthetic and artistic value amongst hundreds of writing forms in the world’s history.

The accurate designations of the Quran and Hadiths created the Science of Calligraphy, while the artistic perspective with which this writing was treated created the Art of Calligraphy from the first moment of its use.

At first, two different writing styles were observed in terms of form depending on the effect different fields of use and different materials.
First of these is the writing style dominated by sharp corners and used for scripts on stone and important documents, while the other is a writing style with mobility dominated by soft and curved lines.

In these periods, the first calligrapher mentioned in resources as an artist is Halid b. Ebu’l-Heyyac who earned his reputation especially during the period of Omayyads. He is followed by Ebu Yahya Malik b. Dinar and Kutbetü’l-Muharrir who was one of the first of the great masters of this field. 

The Art of Calligraphy reached a shapely and proper form on the basis of ratios invented by artists during the period of Abbasids. As a result of three centuries of seeking and experience, this metrical calligraphy was brought to a certain personality by İbn-i Mukle (940) in Baghdad with specific laws and rules.

celi (clear) calligraphy was the most preferred form in works of architecture, while high-rank officials produced writings by using such forms as Celil, Tumar, Riyasi, Sülüseyn and Tevki.

The second most important master of the Abbasids was İbn-i Bevvab (1022). In this first development period of five centuries, Baghdad was the most important centre of arts, while the greatest master of the screening and selection period was Cemaleddin Yakut b. Abdullah (1298).

The most significant revolution realized by Yakut in the Art of Calligraphy was his shift from straight cuts to oblique cuts and his contribution to the aesthetic value of the writing. Then, he also identified and systematized all of six types of writing presented to him with each rule. 

After Yakut, the Art of Calligraphy became the most prominent branch of arts in the world of Islam with its relevance to all branches of fine arts and other fields of science. Different genres evolved on the basis of different influences in important centres and cities.

With Şeyh Hamdullah, the Art of Calligraphy enjoyed the greatest development in history. Regarded as the starting point of Art of Ottoman Calligraphy, this new genre came to be known as ‘Şeyh Hamdullah Genre’ and substituted the approach of Yakut.
After the period of Şeyh Hamdullah, the relevant developments took place within the Ottoman culture and civilization. In this period, Muhakkak and Reyhani writings were replaced by Sülüs and Nesih writings, while Tevki writing did not find much use.

Again in the same period, the approach of Ahmet Karahisari, one of the greatest masters of celi writing, continued to be effective until the XIX Century when celi writing was discontinued.  

In the late XVII Century, the art of calligraphy became even more perfect with the works of Hafız Osman (1642-1698).
After Hafız Osman, the highest aesthetic value was granted to Sülüs-Nesih writing by Mehmet Şevki Efendi (1829-1887) and to celi-Sülüs writing by Mustafa Rakım Efendi (1757-1826).

First used in the reign of Fatih Sultan Mehmet, Talik calligraphy ornamented the scripts of works of architecture in its finest form in the hands of Yesari Mehmet Esad and his son, Mustafa İzzet. 

Completing its development in the XIX Century, celi writing reached its peak with Kadıasker Mustafa İzzet (1801-1876), Şefik Bey (1819-1880) and the last Celi artist of the last century, Sami Bey (1838-1912) (2). Today, in all Islamic countries and communities with artistic traditions, artists involved in the Art of Calligraphy still follow this genre.

Forms of Writing;

Kufi; a geometrical form of writing composed of straight lines and edges.

Sülüs: a form of writing with a round characteristic, which forms the basis of calligraphy. Sülüs Samples
Celi Sülüs: the word, ‘celi’ refers to oversized patterns in the art of calligraphy. Celi sülüs was mostly used in large areas in works of agriculture.

Nesih: a form of writing applied by totally rounding all edges, which was used in religious books and especially Qurans in Islamic writing culture. Nesih Samples

Muhakkak: an oblique version of Sülüs writing with long and wide horizontal parts. Most of its letters are cursive.   Muhakkak Samples 

Rikaa: an edentate, round and curved version of Nesih writing. Most of its letters are cursive. Rikaa Samples

Tevki: a form of writing with no gaps between words as a fast writing for ratification and signature.

Talik: characterized by oblique lines, vivid and fluent with letters and connections of varying thickness. Talik Samples 

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