Lalezar ” A Garden Of Tulip”. We had a great exhibition in the Balmain Watch Gallery in 4-5th December, 2010.
The flower from the East:
The Tulip is not native to the Netherlands. It is a wild flower from the East, from the vastness of Central Asia.
It is believed that the first Tulips sprang from the slopes of the Pamirs and flourished amongst the foothills and valleys of the Tien Shan Mountains, where China and Tibet meet Russia and Afghanistan in one of the least hospitable environments on earth.
The Tulips of the Tien Shan were much shorter than modern Tulips, carrying their petals a few inches from the ground. They were hardy and adapted to survive the harsh winters and hot summers of Central Asia.
Wild Tulips, whose blossoms burst from beneath the snow at the end of the harsh Asian Winter, symbolized life and abundance among the Turks, as they were heralds of the good news of spring.
It is not until the end of the 11th C when the Seljuks moved west and conquered Anatolia from the Byzantines, that the Tulip first appears in nomad paintings. The earliest drawings of Tulips were found on tiles excavated from the 13th C palace of the Seljuk Sultan Alaeddin Kaikubad, which was built on the shores of Lake Beysehir in eastern Anatolia.
The fact that this flower does not appear on the coins or art of the Roman or Byzantine periods shows that it was not known to them.
The Tulip’s journey to the west:
The story of the Tulip bulb’s introduction to Europe is well known and generally acknowledged. The man responsible was Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, a Flemming who was the envoy of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I to Istanbul in 1554-56.
In addition to the tulip, Busbecq is also said to have introduced the lilac into Europe as well. On his return to Vienna, de Busbecq brought Turkish Tulip bulbs to his friend and fellow countryman Carolus Clusius, the Imperial Gardener. They called the flower thoulypen, a Turkish word that means turban and probably refers to the flower’s shape.
In 1593, Clusius retired from his position in Vienna and returned to his home in Leyden, where he became a professor of botany and keeper of the local botanical gardens. He brought his Tulips with him and they flourished in their new home. Word of the beauty of the new flower spread through the Low Countries. Buyers approached Clusius, but he priced his bulbs so high that they were out of the reach for most gardeners. Instead of buying, horticultural fanatics stole the bulbs, and soon they were flourishing everywhere.
By 1634, Tulips were a status symbol, traded like stocks, with their value soaring so high that one bulb was worth as much as a fine house. Tulip books, somewhat like modern mail order catalogs, were filled with watercolour paintings of the most desirable varieties. These books were an extremely valuable tool for traders to show potential customers what their bulbs would look like.
The trading of Tulip bulbs became a frenzy, and the paper shares that might represent ownership of a fraction of a hypothetical bulb, rather then a real object that actually changed hands. Bulbs were priced by weight, and shares weighing a fraction of an ounce sold for thousands of florins, a price equal to the value of acres of good farmland.
In February of 1637, conservative investors began to sell, hoping to protect their profits. Suddenly everyone was selling and the market collapsed. Tulips once worth an entire estate were now devalued to the price of an onion. Currency
became deflated and the entire country and economy suffered a depression equivalent to the Great Depression of the 1930’s.
The Tulip Period:
The Tulip Period (1718-1730) was one of the most interesting eras in the Ottoman period, when the imperial household, aristocrats and the wealthy spent a significant amount of time and money on nightly celebrations, parties, music, poetry and sundry entertainments such as plays, mock fights, processions and fireworks.
One famous anecdote relates how during the evening celebrations, candles would be placed on the backs of turtles that were allowed to wander freely in the palace complex and gardens at Sa’adabad,
In the Tulip Period, etiquette was very much a part of everyday life, especially where the sultan’s court was concerned, and a specific ranking of who paid whose respects to whom was strictly observed.
Sultan Ahmet III (1703—1730) presided over this particular time in Ottoman history until he was dethroned in a rebellion by the Janissaries. His extravagant and luxurious lifestyle at the court ultimately lead to his downfall.
The name “Tulip Period” comes from the extraordinary efforts that these people went to in cultivating different kinds of tulips.
The Ottomans were not only passionate about flowers, they turned the enjoyment of gardens into an art form.
The Tulip in Turkish Art:
The Tulip has played a significant role in Turkish Art and Culture with traditional Turkish Tiles, Fabrics and crafts being adorned with this beautiful flower.
As a decorative element, the tulip is frequently found in Turkish-Islamic architecture, worked in marble and wood and on tiles, as well as on the very painstakingly sewn Ottoman garments.
The mausoleums of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent, who is known to have been a passionate tulip lover and to have worn stylish tulip-embroidered caftans, tulips graced the royal armor and the sultan’s underwear.
The Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts in Istanbul still displays a simple cotton shirt, made to be worn beneath armor and richly decorated with verses from the Koran on the front and embroidered tulips on the back. This was worn as a protection against evil.
The Tulip became the favorite motif of the Ottoman artists and artisans, appearing with increasing frequency on flower vases and tiles. Tulips were embroidered onto the prayer rugs sewn by brides for their trousseaux and painted onto water bottles or woven into the velvet coverings that ornamented elaborate Turkish saddles.
During the rein of Süleyman the Magnificent, the Chief court artist Karamemi completely revamped the repertoire of the Ottoman decorative arts. He employed a few different styles in his depictions of tulips, their simple, elegant form becoming stylized in Turkish Art, thus opening the way for a brand-new style in Ottoman Art.
