First, three things historical of which I was ignorant:

1. The word “miniature” is derived from the Latin minium, which means “red lead,” hence a picture in an ancient or medieval illuminated manuscript is a “miniature” because it had been miniated or delineated with that pigment.

The generally small scale of the medieval pictures has led to an etymological confusion of the term with minuteness.

2. The word “Byzantine” comes from the name of the capital city of that empire, Byzantium. The city we now know as Istanbul was given the name Byzantium by Greek colonists from Megara in 657 BC. The city became the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire, even though its capital was renamed Constantinople in honor of the Roman emperor Constantine shortly after his death. Ironically, the Byzantine Empire survived the fall of Rome by nearly 1000 years.

3. The Ottoman Empire began in 1453 when Mehmet II conquered Constantinople. The Ottomans started as a Sunni sultanate led by Osman I in 1299 in northwestern Anatolia. Anatolia is another name for Asia Minor. It takes its name from the Anatolian peninsula, which constitutes the Asian portion (vast majority) of Turkey.  “Istanbul” was mostly but not exclusively used as the name of the city from 1453 forward (it was still Constantinople to some people in some nations).

Miniatures…in brief

The earliest miniatures we know of are a series of drawings cut from the Ambrosian Iliad which dates to the 3^rd century. Considerable classical naturalness is evident in the drawings, which makes them a prime example of the Western tradition in miniatures.

The Western tradition was practiced primarily in northern European countries. The Flemish miniature above is one example. The work of Hans Holbein is perhaps the most famous.

The Byzantine tradition eventually broke away from the Western tradition by using the fixed conventions we are so familiar with in medieval bible illuminations rather than natural observations.

Under the restraint of ecclesiastical domination, Byzantine art became more and more rigid and stylized. The Byzantine miniatures were almost always religious in nature, featured gold leaf for backgrounds rather than landscapes or architectural features, and the figures were stereotyped and conventional.

The Persian tradition—from which the Ottoman tradition arose—was almost wholly secular in nature, devoted to illustrations of Persian fables and scientific manuscripts. During the Tamerlane (Timurid) Dynasty (1370 to 1526), artistic life flourished in part because of the accumulating fortunes of the merchant class and in part because of nourishing crosscurrents between the many cultures encompassed and alliances formed. The influence of Chinese and Central Asian artists was especially pronounced in the early 15^th century and persisted into the 16^th.

I’m including two examples from the Topkapi museum of Persian art influenced by Chinese art, mainly because it wasn’t what I expected. Both pictures are dated 15th century:

Bizhad (1450-1535), a master artist who practiced his craft in Herat (Afghanistan), is generally considered to be the greatest of all the Persian miniaturists. Here are four of the works attributed to him (clicking on an image will take you to a larger view):

While the Persian tradition continued, the miniature painting of the growing Ottoman empire began to take on distinctive features, in part because of its subject matter—important events of the day rather than fables—and in part because of its style—the painters were required to illustrate daily events and, as a consequence, they learned to work very rapidly and without elaborate ornamentation. You might consider them the photojournalists of their day.

The first distinctively Ottoman miniatures were created under the patronage of Sultan Mehmet II (1432-1481); the classical period of Ottoman miniatures is considered to be from 1520 to 1603.

Master Osman, whose disciples are featured in My Name is Red, is a miniaturist of the classical age. First, here are four pages from the Book of the King of Kings attributed to him:

Now, four more works by Osman that are on display at the Topkapi Palace museum:

My Name is Red frequently refers to a portrait of the Sultan in the Frankish style. The artist of the work Osman is compelled to copy is named in the novel as the Venetian artist Sebastiano. I could find no evidence of that portrait in my admittedly hurried research. I did however, find this portrait of Sultan Mehmet II painted by the Venetian artist Gentile Bellini:

If you’re still with me, I’m going to abuse your patience just a little further. I can’t recall ever reading a more charming introduction to works of art than what Eric Schroeder of the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, had to say about Harvard’s collection of Persian miniatures:

There are many Persian paintings in our museums. The finest of them seem to me as beautiful as anything else these buildings contain. All kinds of people are attracted to them, and some are fascinated. I suspect that color is what first attracts: real gold, real malachite, true ultramarine, unmixed vermilion are beautiful in themselves. What fascinates us afterwards is something very complex. There is, for instance, the loitering interest of narrative in childish form subtly organized in a very mature way, and a perfected draftsmanship which yet has something in common with children’s drawings and reminds us of something we can no longer see ourselves. A great wealth of detail not boring when explored, a certain tensity which so permeates the whole work as, for example, to make stiff figures look stiff with excitement, all these and other qualities undoubtedly affect us when we look at Persian paintings. Lovers of flower have special reasons for lingering before them. They have all kinds of special and general interest and deserve their prestige.