When Poetry Came Alive on Tiles: Persian Poems on 13th-14thCentury Kashan Tiles
Serap DenizmenThe new Muslim Turkish states that emerged with Turks' entry into the Islamic field brought their culture to Islamic civilization. Turks reflected their own Islamic perceptions and lives onto the works they produced in the architectural, literary, cultural, and artistic fields. The reason why Persian poetry evolved and moved to a higher point during the Great Seljuk State was that the sultans and high-level bureaucrats were patrons of poems and poets. In the same period, the firing techniques used in tile art were further developed by the masters of the city of Kashan, and the tile products the city produced began to be called kāshī. In the 13th and 14th centuries, quatrains adorned these tiles, which were described as luxury consumer goods of the period. This article examines this period of time where poetry and tile work occured hand in hand and the importance of the city of Kashan as a tile production center and presents the place and development of quatrains that began developing in the Great Seljuk period with regard to the sultans and society. The article then examines the poems found on various ceramic products belonging to the 13th and 14th centuries, presents their translations, and shares pictures of these tiles in order to identify the poets and form an opinion on the poetry and aesthetic tastes of period.
Şiirin Çinide Hayat Bulduğu Bir Dem: 13.-14. Yüzyıl Kâşân Çinilerindeki Farsça Şiirler
Serap DenizmenTürkler’in İslam dairesine girmesiyle beraber ortaya çıkan yeni Müslüman Türk devletleri kültürlerini İslam medeniyetine taşımış; mimarî, edebî, kültürel ve sanatsal alanlarda ortaya koydukları eserlerde kendi İslamî duyuş ve yaşayışlarını yansıtmışlardır. Büyük Selçuklu Devleti zamanında Fars şiirinin tekamül ederek daha yüksek bir noktaya taşınmasının sebebi sultanların ve üst düzey bürokratların şiiri ve şairi himaye etmesidir. Aynı dönemde çini sanatında varolan pişirme teknikleri Kâşân şehrinin ustaları tarafından daha da geliştirilmiş ve şehrin ürettiği çini mamuller kâşî olarak anılmaya başlamıştır. 13. ve 14. yüzyılda ise döneminin lüks tüketim malları olarak nitelenen bu çinilerin üzerini rubailer süslemektedir. Söz sanatı olan şiir ile çininin el ele verdiği bu zaman dilimini inceleyen makalemizde bir çini üretim merkezi olarak Kâşân şehrinin ehemmiyeti, Büyük Selçuklu döneminde gelişmeye başlayan rubainin sultanlar ve toplum içindeki yeri, gelişimi hakkında malumat verilmiştir. Sonrasında 13. ve 14. asra ait çeşitli çini mamuller üzerindeki şiirler okunmuş, tercümeleri verilmiş, şairleri tespit edilerek dönemin şiir ve estetik zevki üzerine bir kanaat oluşması için bahsedilen kâşîlerin resimleri makalede paylaşılmıştır.
Poetry is like a mirror reflecting life in many aspects. The aesthetic values, culture, and artistic understanding of a society can be seen in the images reflected in this mirror. The Great Seljuks came from a nomadic culture and encountered new cultures in the lands they conquered. The Great Seljuk dynasty settled down with the state they had established, and in many ways they consisted of open-minded, tolerant people. During this period, Persian was adopted as the literary language, and the Persian language showed a great developments. Although the language of the poetry was Persian, the Turkish warrior-type lover began to appear in the imagery and metaphors used in these poems. During this same period, the city of Kashan made a name for itself with the luxury wares it produced, so much so that tile products began being referred to as kāshī in deference to the city, and these products were exported to other cities. One of the most striking features of these tiles, which are encountered in various museums around the world as well as in some architectural structures in Iran, are the figures on their surfaces. The people depicted on these tiles have moonlike faces and almond eyes. These figures have long hair hung on both sides of the head and are depicted while riding a horse, shooting arrows or while sitting crosslegged (Turkish sitting) on a throne looking at a garden or pool. These figures are the practical projection of the Turk warrior lover in Persian poetry and must be accepted as a product of Seljuk tastes. In addition, hunt animals such as greyhounds, partridges, ducks, and rabbits, as well as mythological animals such as sirens, sphinx, and phoenix are depicted on these tiles. Although the Great Seljuk Empire collapsed in 1157, its influence on culture and art continued into the 13th and 14th centuries, as seen by how art historians use the term Seljuk Dynasty while classifying the objects from this period. During the Great Seljuk period, quatrains also evolved in parallel with the development of Persian poetry, with Omar Khayyam and Mahsati being the famous quatrain poets of this period. The skill level of the poets who were present next to the sultans and the maliks was measured by their ability to express quatrains extemporaneously. For example, Muʿizzi -one of Malik-Shah’s palace poet- owes his existence as a Malik al-Shuʿarā to the quatrains he read with wit. The quatrain examples given in the Dawlat-shah’s Tadhkirat al-Shuʿarā reveal how popular this form was. Quatrains written on tiles produced in Kashan in the 13th and 14th centuries also show not just poets but also craftsmen to have been interested in quatrains. These poems were mostly written by the poets of the period or by the tile masters. The tiles have poems by Rumi, Baba Afdal, Mujir al-Din Baylaqani, Mahsati, Ferdowsi, Rooni, Rokn al-Din Da'vidar Qomi' on the tiles. These poems on the tiles also function as a written diwan. Tiles on which the master craftsman wrote the date of production can be used to determine whether a poem belongs to the poet to whom the poem is attributed. In addition, versions of a quatrain or ghazal containing different words can also be seen. The Kashan tiles allowed poems to become visible and tangible and are the most beautiful tiles among their peers. The embroidery around a quatrain, even on tiles used in daily life, can only be interpreted as a victory of poetry.
