the problem of space in the ottoman mosque

The Problem of Space in the Ottoman MosqueAuthor(s): David GebhardSource: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Sep., 1963), pp. 271-275Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3048101 .

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NOTES 271

art [painting]," he continued, "ainsi que la musique, sont au-dessus de la pensee; de 1l leur avantage sur la litterature, par le vague.""5 Painting, like music, is superior to literature (and he underlines these words) because it is above thought. In the passage from De 1'Allemagne which served as the source of this para- phrase, Madame de Stail had been even more precise and explicit in her description of the manner in which painting, like music, might express verbally inexpres- sible content: "Il y a de la pens6e dans cette maniere de concevoir les arts, comme dans les combinaisons ingenieuses de Gluck; mais les arts sont au-dessus de la pensie; leur langage, ce sont des couleurs, ou les formes ou les sons.5 Si 1'on pouvait se figurer les im- pressions dont notre ame serait susceptible avant qu'elle connfit la parole, on concevrait mieux l'effet de la peinture et de la musique.""5

This conception of music as the prime medium for the expression of romantic content appears again in Delacroix's writings-among notes entitled "Realisme et Idealisme" included the first volume of the (Euvres litteraires."5 Here, without any comment by the editor (or, indeed, by Hubert Gillot when he quotes the

passage),"4 one discovers a long excerpt from De

l'Allemagne55 which concludes with this now-familiar note: "L'homme a dans son ame des sentiments innes, que les objets reels ne satisferont jamais, et c'est ' ces sentiments que l'imagination du peintre et du poete sait donner une forme et une vie. Le premier des arts, la musique, qu'imite-il?"

Once this passage has been identified as Madame de Stail's, it seems doubly significant that Delacroix found its contents sufficiently congenial to incorporate in his notes. It also confirms his preoccupation with this aspect of the Paragone. Predictably, however, he indulges in some propaganda favoring painting over music as a romantic medium. Music, he suggests in the Journal, may very well be inferior in this respect, since painting, which appeals to the sense of sight, renders intangible content more tangible: "L'art du peinture est d'autant plus intime au cceur de l'homme qu'il parait plus mat&riel; car chez lui, comme dans la nature ex-

tirieure, la part est faite franchement a ce qui est fini et a ce qui est infini, c'est-a-dire a ce que l'me trouve qui la remue interieurement dans les objets qui ne frappent que les sens.""5 In so doing, Delacroix thus linked two aspects of the Paragone: the superiority of sight as the receptacle of concrete images-an argument originating in antiquity, championed by Leo- nardo, and still present in Diderot; and painting and music as the arts of intangible, subjective expression, an idea of more recent vintage, evolving especially in the eighteenth century and available to him ascertain- ably via the writings of Madame de Staidl.

Delacroix, then, in his comparison of the arts, reflects an astonishing knowledge of the mainstream of art theory, which enabled him to exalt his own art, painting, with arguments gleaned from remote as well as more recent sources. His acute perception of the direction which modern painting was taking inspired him to consider a new aspect of the Paragone, which might be termed Ut pictura musica, in place of the traditional Ut pictura poesis, an aspect symbolic of the new orientation of the arts towards subjective expression. Delacroix's view was indeed prophetic, for one need only consult the writings of Whistler, Redon, Gauguin, Matisse, and Kandinsky, among others, to see how fundamental this analogy of painting and music was to become.57

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

50. Ibid. 51. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, in 1766 (Laocoan, trans.

E. Frothingham, New York, I957, p. -31), has noted that already in the sixteenth century the Venetian writer, Ludovico Dolce, had formulated the notion that "what painters best express by lines and colors is least capable of expression in words."

52. Madame de Stail, De l'Allemagne, Paris, 1869, p. 407. 53. (Euvres littiraires, I, pp. 65-67. 54. Hubert Gillot, op.cit., p. 328. 55. De Stall, op.cit., pp. 479-480. 56. Journal, I, pp. 17-18 (October 8, 1822). 57. Whistler claimed that "as music is the poetry of sound,

so is painting the poetry of sight, and the subject-matter has nothing to do with harmony of sound or of colour." Quoted by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves, Artists on Art, New York, 1945, p. 347. Redon wrote to a friend that his drawings "are not to be defined. They determine nothing. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous realm of the unde- termined. They are a kind of metaphor. . . ." ibid., pp. 360- 361 - Gauguin insisted that "in painting one must search rather

for suggestion than for description, as is done in music. Some- times people accuse me of being incomprehensible only because they look for an explicative side to my pictures which is not there," ibid., p. 369 (see H. R. Rookmaker, Synthetist Art Theories, Amsterdam, 1959, pp. 2xo-22o, for the grow- ing importance of this analogy in nineteenth century theory culminating in the ideas of Gauguin and his circle) i on the subject of imitation, Matisse wrote: "I cannot copy nature in a servile way, I must interpret nature and submit it to the spirit of the picture-when I have found the relationship of all the tones the result must be a living harmony of tones, a harmony not unlike that of a musical composition," ibid., p. 411i and, in 19 2, Kandinsky made this analogy one of the leading themes of his argument in Concerning the Spiritual in Art, New York, 1947, p. 40: "A painter who finds no satisfaction in mere representation, however artistic, in his longing to express his internal life, cannot but envy the ease with which music, the least material of the arts today, achieves this end. He naturally seeks to apply the means of music to his own art."

THE PROBLEM OF SPACE IN THE OTTOMAN MOSQUE

DAVID GEBHARD

In the writings and studies devoted to Islamic architecture there has long been a tendency either to ignore or to dismiss with a few comments the architecture which was developed by the Ottoman Turks after their capture of Constantinople in the mid-fifteenth century. Western critics and historians have been prone to emphasize the numerous elements of Otto- man architecture which were derived from the Byzan-



272 THE ART BULLETIN

tines, especially of course from the Church of Hagia Sophia, from the earlier Seljuk Turks, from the Ar- menians of eastern Anatolia, and later from western Europe during the Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo periods. Thus Charles in his article on "Hagia Sophia and the Great Imperial Mosques," asserts, "To me, however, the obvious resemblance of Beyazid (Mosque) and especially of Suleimaniyeh (Mosque) to Hagia Sophia indicates a direct descent from the church rather than a remote one from a series of earlier mosques, none of which was ever built on the same or a really comparable scheme."' To one degree or another Gabriel, Riefstahl, and others have stated the same point of view." Completely opposed to this position are the Islamic or specifically Turkish pro- tagonists who claim a uniqueness and basic originality for Ottoman architecture. The Turkish historian Aga- Oglu wrote in discussing the Fatih Mosque of Istan- bul that the Ottoman mosques ". . . were not developed from the Christian Byzantine Churches as has commonly been believed, but from the Islamic Persian medresse buildings."' Other Turkish critics have held to the same position, that Ottoman architecture is in essence simply a logical continuation of the Near East- ern architectural tradition and that its debt to Byzan- tine and Armenian precedents was slight and of little importance.4

As Ottoman architecture emerged and developed during the fifteenth through the nineteenth centuries, its central ideas as well as many of its details were quite naturally derived from many sources, but in the end this process of borrowing was essentially no dif- ferent from that of any other fully developed architecture of the past or present. The Ottoman architects absorbed and fully synthesized these various forms into a single coherent architectural statement, a statement which was as complete and unified as that of any other architectural style. While the question of sources and derivations is extremely significant, still it is the ho- mogeneity of a style which should be first understood and appraised; and it is the completeness of this synthesis of Ottoman architecture which has most often been ignored in the superficial statement that the Otto- mans merely copied Hagia Sophia.

The stylistic synthesis of Ottoman architecture is most fully expressed in the imperial mosques which were built by Sinan and his followers during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries." In these structures the exterior and interior manipulation of space is decidedly unique and is quite unlike that experienced in other architectural styles. It is the quality of the space rather than the details or plans which ultimately establishes the individuality and character of this architecture.

The Ottoman mosque, like the earlier buildings of the Romans and the Byzantines, concentrated its basic attention on the enclosure of space, that is on the establishment of an interior oriented environment." The visual impact of the mosques as objects existing in space was always secondary to their concern for the space which is enclosed. The one single feature which has always attracted the attention of critics is the dome which the Ottomans employed as the major device for roofing the mosque. Characteristic examples of the dome may be seen in the Sokullu Mosque (text fig. 3) which reveals a large, low central dome balanced by four half domes in the corners; in the Riistem Pasa Mosque (text fig. I); in the Mihrimah Mosque (text fig. 2, Figs. 2, 6); and in many others. A similar but more complex employment of a dominant dome with balancing half domes occurs in the ;ehzade Mosque (Fig. I) and in the Sultan Ahmet Mosque (Fig. 5) with a consequent spatial extension to each side of the central dome.

In plan, in cross-section drawings (text fig. 4), and above all in photographs the centralized dome with its subsidiary half domes and vaults would seem to be the dominant feature which established the character of the interior space of the Ottoman mosques, but such is not actually the case. Rather, the dome, in conjunction with its secondary elements, has been deployed to create an interior space which is always neutral in character. One normally would assume that an upward thrust of the dome and its drum would form the dominant spatial movement in these mosques. In fact, no such movement occurs, nor do the mihrab or minber, generally situated on the wall opposite the prin- cipal entrance, create any directional force. One's

i. Martin A. Charles, "Hagia Sophia and the Great Im- perial Mosques," ART BULLETIN, XVII, 1930, p. 321.

2. Albert Gabriel, "Les Mosquees de Constantinople," Syria, VII, 1926, pp. 353-419; Rudolf Riefstahl, "Selimiyeh in Konya," ART BULLETIN, XII, 1930, pp. 311-318; Martin S.

Briggs, Muhtammadan Architecture in Egypt and Palestine, Oxford, 1924, pp. 137-139.

3. M. Aga-Oglu, "The Fatih Mosque at Constantinople," ART BULLETIN, XII, 1930, p. 186.

4. The characteristic approach which most Turkish historians take to the question of the origin and development of Ottoman architecture may be found in such publications as C. E. Arseven, Tiirk Sanati Tarihi, Istanbul, 1956; Ulya Vogt-G5knil, Tilrkische Moscheen, Zurich, 1953; and Behcet Unsal, Turkish Islamic Architecture, London, 1959. A similar point of view is also expressed in the writings of Ernst Egli, Sinan, der Baumeister Osmanischer Glanzzeit, Stuttgart, 1954, and in a brief article which he wrote, "Sinan the Architect,"

Landscape, 7:3, Spring, 1958, pp. 6-11. The whole question of the sources of Ottoman architecture is extremely complex. Too often the tendency has been to discover one single source, such as Hagia Sophia, or one example or another from the pre-Ottoman architecture of Anatolia. One would be doing an injustice to the facts if he completely dismissed the importance of Hagia Sophia in the development of this architecture. Yet, as S. K. Yetkin, "The Evolution of Architectural Form in Turkish Mosques," Studia Islamica, xI, 1959, pp. 73-91, has indicated there are several pre-conquest and early conquest buildings which contain the basic germ of the later classic Ottoman mosques. The most significant of these buildings would be the 0 5erefeli Mosque in Edirne (1447) and the First Mosque of the Conqueror in Istanbul (1463-1471; de- stroyed in an earthquake in 1765).

5. E. Egli, op.cit., 1954. 6. Dogan Kuban, Osmanli Ding Mimarisinde if Mekdn

Tegekkiili, Istanbul, 1958.



I

2

I. ?ehzade Cami, Istanbul, 1543-48. Designed by Sinan (photo: author)

2. Mihrimah Cami, Istanbul, 1540-55(?). Designed by Sinan (photo: author)

3. Bayezid Cami, entrance, Istanbul, i5oi-6 (photo: Adil Arikan)

4. Selimiye Cami, roof, Edirne, 1569-75. Designed by Sinan (photo: Dogan Kuban)

3 4



5. Sultan Ahmet Cami, interior, Istanbul, 16oo-i6.

Designed by Mehmet Aga (photo: Adil Arikan)

6.Mihrimah Cami, interior, Istanbul, 1540-55(0) Designed by Sinan (photo:-author)



NOTES 273

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I. Riistem Paga Cami, Istanbul, ca. 1550. Designed by Sinan (plan by Feyyaz Kuku)

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2. Mihrimah Cami, Istanbul, 1540-1555 (?). Designed by Sinan (plan by Feyyaz Kuku)

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3.Sokullu Cami, Istanbul, 152 s (plan by Feyyaz Kug'u)



274 THE ART BULLETIN

m mI , m i

mosque porch atrium colonade entrance street houses

4. Cross-sectional view of a characteristic Ottoman Mosque indicating the variation in spatial movements (drawn by Feyyaz Kuku)

attention is drawn to the mihrab and the minber only when the building is being used for prayer, and then it is not the building itself which suggests a directional movement, but the individuals involved in the religious ceremony. The manner in which natural light is intro- duced also substantially contributes to the basic neutral- ity of the interior space of the mosque. The natural light entering through the windows grouped around the circumference of the drum and the base of the dome (Figs. 5 and 6) is counter-balanced by the light coming from the cluster of windows in the four side walls. Thus no single window or group of windows assumes an importance over the others. The calm repose of this interior space was described by E. M. Forster when he wrote "Our attitude (toward the Mosque) is vague; and years afterwards, despite visits to the East, the vagueness remains. Whereas a Chris- tian Church or a Greek temple wakens definite sentiments, a mosque seems indeterminate. We can recall its component parts and memorize it architecturally or can make a pretty picture of it against the blue sky, but its central spirit escapes. . ... It embodies no crisis, leads up through no gradation of nave and choir, and em- ploys no hierarchy of priests."'

The neutral nondirectional space of the interior of the Ottoman mosque contrasts sharply with the mul- tiple directional thrusts encountered in a Byzantine Church or in the earlier domed buildings of the Romans. Hagia Sophia, for example, has a dual directional movement, on the one hand toward the altar and on the other, upward into the dome itself. A further accentuation of Byzantine duality occurs in the smaller high-drummed Byzantine churches such as Saint John in Trullo, the Church of Saint Theodore (Kilisse Cami), or the churches making up the complex of Our Saviour Pantocrator (all in Istanbul) and also in the typical European Renaissance and Baroque churches such as San Lorenzo, Rome; Santo Spirito, Milan; Il Gesu, Rome; or St. Peter's, Rome. In the smaller Byzantine churches, the interior space is more broken up, thus less like a mosque. The dome or domes roof only small areas and not the whole enclosed space. They act more as a vertical thrust highly localized. In

the characteristic Armenian churches such as that at Aghtamar (915-21) the dome's prime importance was that of an exterior piece of sculpture; in the interior it was of little visual significance, especially compared to the single directional movement leading to the altar. This dichotomy in the use of domes in Byzantine and Ottoman architecture bespeaks the special quality of Ottoman architecture.

The spatial dominance of a dome may also be per- ceived in the Seljuk buildings of Iran and Turkey, the domed rooms of the Jami Mosque (Isfahan, io88- 1092) or the Ince Minare Mosque (Konya, 1251). The domes of the Seljuks in Turkey were small in scale, roofing single spaces, and were decoratively expressive of their brick building material. They were part of the long tradition of domes as sacred buildings for the Moslems. Probably the closest approximation to the neutralization encountered in the Ottoman mosques is to be seen in several of the Safawid mosques in Iran such as the Shah Mosque ( 1612-1630) and the Sheikh Lutfullah Mosque (1603-1618), both in Isfahan, or in the characteristic Mughal buildings of Pakistan and India, the Badshahi Mosque (Lahore, 1658-1707) or the Jami Mosque (Delhi, 1644-58). But it should be noted that the enclosed space of the Safawid and Mughal buildings is almost always an extension of the exterior space of the enclosed but open courtyard and it never exists as a self-contained entity.

As objects existing in space the Ottoman mosques strove to mirror the volumetric enclosure of space. The domes, vaults, and wall surfaces which enclose the space and which form the structure of the building were consistently and logically declared on the exterior of the building. Thus the close expressive relationship which exists between interior and exterior means that these buildings are remarkable examples of architectural "constructivism" (Fig. I). With little difficulty one may "read" the structure and the plan of the volumetric space by examining their outward forms. For example the great arches which support the drum and dome of the Mihrimah Mosque are revealed both inside and out (Fig. 2). So too are the reinforced corner

7. E. M. Forster, Abinger Harvest, New York, 1955, pp. 259-260.



NOTES 275

buttresses which were designed to absorb the thrust of the drum and dome. The flying buttresses and the heavy reinforced ribs of the dome became important visual elements on the exterior of this building.

Since the exterior so accurately reflects the nature of the enclosed space, it is only natural that it asserted itself as a series of distinct and very separate parts, only tenuously held together as a unified design. More often than not the low dome and its drum was in visual opposition to its self-consciously declared square or hexagonal base (Fig. I). The numerous entrances and porches were treated as independent parts vaguely attached to the building, but always kept somewhat apart from it. Each of the secondary domes and half- domes forcefully asserts its own independent existence (Fig. 4). Further opposition may be sensed in the conflict between the low mass of the building, which presses into the ground and which seems to grow organically out of the site, and the tall slender shafts of the minarets. An equally significant set of opposites is established between the volumetric structure of the mosque and the sculptural forms of the minarets.

It is, then, the visual tension established between these various elements which helps to carry even further the underlying neutralization of the Mosque. This conflict is not, as Charles and others have pointed out, a weakness in Ottoman design, rather it is one of the major features which establishes the stylistic individuality of these buildings.8 This atmosphere of abrupt contrasts forms the underlying aesthetic lan- guage of these Ottoman mosques. The sudden change between the interior and exterior space, the visual independence of the entrance screen and the individual window openings (Fig. 3), the tiled and painted wall and ceiling surfaces (Figs. 5 and 6) and even the loose flowing quality of the leaded roofs (Fig. 4) were the grammar of this architecture.

One facet which is frequently overlooked in any discussion of the Ottoman mosque is the relation of the main structure to its secondary units, and the way in which the whole complex fitted into the cityscape (text fig. 4). Only from a distance, as part of the city or village skyline, may one sense any sculptural, three- dimensional qualities in the Ottoman mosque. For those using and closely experiencing the mosque, the visual impact tends to be non-sculptural and at times even two-dimensional.9 The main entrance fa]ade of the mosque may generally be seen only when one is within the enclosed atrium or courtyard. The mosque and its outbuildings are, as a general rule, almost invisible from the adjoining streets. By forcing a person into the enclosed courtyard, the view presented by the mosque is decidedly limited to the rather two-dimensional surface of a single fagade. The surface of these mosques (whether walls, roofs, ceilings, or floors) was

conceived of as thin two-dimensional planes which in themselves declared no bulk or mass. By keeping the plaster mullioned windows and metal grills closely parallel to the adjoining exterior and interior surfaces, the planes of the walls remain thin and unbroken (Figs. 3, 6). Surface decoration of painted geometric patterns and tiles flowed over the interior surfaces. Always, however, the wall plane remains flat and unbroken, and never does one experience a true visual movement into or out of these surfaces. Curiously, even the familiar stalactite motif does not convey the usual bulk and three-dimensional quality which one tends to associate with architectural sculpture. For the effect of the stalactite decoration is not that of mass but is closely akin to that of thinly folded pieces of paper.

Finally, mention should be made of the Ottomans' understanding and appreciation for human scale en- tailed in these structures. The Ottoman architect created a series of spatial oppositions, each of which tended to emphasize and to be played off against the other. The streets themselves were narrow and their perpendicularness led to an upward spatial thrust. When one enters the street entrance and passes through into the arched colonnade of the courtyard of the mosque, one encounters an intimate scale through the use of low passages, small doors and windows which open onto adjacent shops and rooms. One then emerges into the courtyard, with its fountain and occasional trees, where the space of the atrium is defined by the low-scaled arched colonnade on three sides and the entrance porch on the fourth. The visual impact of the court yard is that of a space oriented to the sky above. The porch and vestibule into the prayer room of the mosque repeat the low confined space of the entrance and colonnade. The interior of the mosque reveals a play between the openness of space directly under the main dome and the more confined space of the half domes and the occasional side aisles. Thus, whether consciously or not, the Ottoman architect arrived at an intriguing rhythmic spatial play of contrasts which mirrors the basic pattern of the

building. The establishment of an interior non-directional

neutral space, an antithesis of parts, a close correlation between the interior and exterior of the mosque, and a basic "constructional" approach are then the essential ingredients of Ottoman architecture. Once having established this basic vocabulary, the later Ottoman architects in the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries simply concentrated their attention on the crea- tion of numerous and at times highly ingenious varia- tions on this single theme.'

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA BARBARA

8. M. A. Charles, op.cit., p. 342; R. Riefstahl, op.cit., p. 317.

9. David Gebhard, "Prospects of Istanbul," Landscape, i:ix, Fall, i96I, pp. 17-21.

So. An excellent analysis of late Ottoman architecture (pri- marily i8th and early I9th century) is contained in Dogan Kuban's, Tiirk Barok Mimarisi Hakkinda Bir Deneme, Istan-

bul, 1954.



the problem of space in the ottoman mosque

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