Ottoman Empire Arts

Great civilizations of the world have one thing in common - they were highly civilized, cultured had a refined taste in art and music. The Ottoman Empire too shows flashes of brilliance in the excellence they achieved in arts.

Painting and Architecture

Art needs inspiration and the Ottoman artists were no exceptions. Though cannot be said to have been 100% original, their depiction of art and their culture till today remains of the world's most loved and admired form. They did pick up inspiration from the erstwhile Persian architecture, but the fact that they completely developed a new form of painting on walls and murals made them master artists.

The Ottoman Empire artists excelled in fine arts and that is what spread to many countries from the Turks. They could paint wonderfully; miniature paintings and painting on objects was their area of expertise. At one point of time, their art was recognized throughout the world and amongst their export items, paintings were a foreign exchange earner for the Empire!

The Elite of the Empire are also learnt to have a refined taste in architecture; nonetheless, their men could be called more like artists that engineers. The art that they made apparent in their architecture was surely an engineering marvel. They understandably, excelled in geometry, symmetry and dimensional analysis. The architecture was essentially what could be called as a continual form of the Sassanid Architecture, specific to the Islamist style. The medieval history of the region helps us delve more into their excellence in this field.

Cooking as an Art

Likewise their Islamist and Indian counterparts, the Ottoman people were lovers of good cuisine and had remarkable culinary skills. Though their recipes showed hints of Persian influence but this time, they influenced a lot of Persian dishes as well. Some of those dishes are still churned in the elite kitchens of the republic of Turkey and also in erstwhile southern Soviet states.

Traders were the ones responsible who took the recipes to other parts of the world and credit should be given to them for spreading this wonderful art form that would otherwise had been lost. Slow cooking was what they learnt from the Arabs and improvised on it and made it as one of their mastery in the culinary arts!

Food and art have survived the throes of war and human savagery and still continues to mix different cultures of the world.