Flowers and flower gardens were an important feature of the 16th century Ottoman elite and court culture. In the sultan’s palace, flowers embellished architectural tiles, opulent textiles and monumental carpets. While abundant at court, trade also introduced nomadic communities in the farreaches of the Empire to the floral style. Despite being far from the capital city, and far from ornamental gardens, artisans in small villages and nomadic encampments emulated these stylised blooms.

The floral style continues to embody Turkish culture as its tourism bureau markets the nation with a tulip logo. The impact of this aesthetic was felt internationally also when the floral trade took off in Europe in the 15th century after tulips arrived in Vienna from the Ottoman Empire in 1554.

The flower as the quintessential icon of the Ottoman Empire’s complex and rich style of embroidery came centre stage this September at The Textile Museum in Washington, D.C. when it hosted, ‘The Sultan’s garden: the blossoming of Ottoman Art’ (September 21, 2012 — March 10, 2013). The exhibition and its accompanying catalogue chronicle how one of the world’s most powerful empires adopted a singular artistic style and how that style gained lasting influence in the region.

Floral design is an art form like any other. It takes into account a full range of artistic principles, where compositions are thought of in terms of balance, proportion, harmony, and rhythmic stylisations. Colour, texture, lines and space are other essentials that determine the success of the designed piece but it is the ingenuity and skill with which these Ottoman patterns have been executed which causes us to marvel at the artists’ expertise and imagination.

Unlike the rapidity with which today’s digital manipulation can shuffle and compose elements, creating designs of wondrous beauty and chromatic brilliance manually calls for the same rigour and devotion that one attributes to the venerable art of miniature painting.

This exhibit focuses on a single artist, Kara Memi, who worked in the royal arts workshop of Istanbul and influenced floral styles that are still prevalent today.Particularly interesting for sampler lovers are the narratives of how stylised tulips, carnations, hyacinths, honeysuckles, roses, and rosebuds came to embellish nearly all media produced by the Ottoman court at the beginning of the mid-16th century and how they exerted an influence on western designs and needlework.

Prior to 1550, Ottoman art had primarily employed an artistic language common to the greater Islamic world and frequently depicted geometrical designs, fantastical animals and flora. One of the decorative styles that characterised the court arts of the age was called saz, an ancient Turkish word used to define an enchanted forest.

The originator of the saz style in Süleyman’s court was Shkulu who entered the Nakkashane in 1520 and became its head in 1545, a post which he retained until his death.Shkulu’s drawings of fairies and ferocious creatures in combat, and his studies of single blossoms and leaves, were incorporated into imperial albums. Their themes were employed by other imperial societies and applied to different materials.

This exhibition focuses on decorative style that was created by Kara Memi, who had studied with Sahkulu in the Nakkashane and became the head of the corps after his master’s death. Memi, who flourished between the 1540s and 1560s, was the promoter of the naturalistic style in which spring flowers, such as tulips, carnations, roses and hyacinths grew from clusters of leaves amidst blossoming fruit trees.

The 58 works of art ‘In the Sultan’s garden’ comprise court costumes, horse adornments, vestments, carpets, brocaded silks, velvets, and furnishings. Two pieces of Iznik ceramics are also on view, demonstrating the cross-media impact of this movement. The exhibition unveils the story of Memi’s influence and traces the continuing impact of Ottoman floral style through the textile arts — some of the most luxurious and technically complex productions of the Empire.

A surprisingly large number of textiles survive from the early Ottoman period decorated with Christian subject matter, in church treasuries in Greece, the Balkans, and Russia. Many of these silks represent the finest of Ottoman weaving technology, and it is perhaps surprising to see these produced within the tightly controlled silk workshops of the Sultans.

Such revelations point to the convergence of taste and of political interests that led to these magnificent Turkish textiles for use in Orthodox Christian worship. Court workshops exported luxury items to European customers whose own economies lacked either the technology, tradition, or access to materials to produce such goods themselves.

Included in the exhibition is a collar from a liturgical cope made in Russia, but embroidered with Ottoman flowers. Floral style patterns also appear on costumes in Italian Renaissance portraiture and influenced designers of the Arts and Crafts Movement in Great Britain, including William Morris.