H-Mideast-Medieval

Script United: Safavid Iran, Ottoman Turkey, and Nasta’liq

Calligraphy in the Sixteenth Century
Discussion published by Fozia Parveen on Saturday, January 13, 2018

"Script United: Safavid Iran, Ottoman Turkey, and Nasta’liq Calligraphy in the Sixteenth
Century"

with Dr Simon Rettig (Freer Sackler Gallery, Washington)

on Friday 19th January 2018

from 6:30pm - 8:00pm

at the Bowland Auditorium, Berrick Saul Building, University of York, UK.

Attendance by free ticket only https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/public-lectures/spr-

ng-18/script-united

Abstract: since its development in late fourteenth-century Iran, the nasta‘liq script emerged as the
primary style utilised to transcribe almost any text written in Persian, from belletrist copies to
historical treatises in a land stretching from India to Anatolia. Traditionally considered as the “visual
embodiment of the Persian language, nasta‘liq was adopted in the Ottoman realm as early as the
fifteenth century. Yet, the script encountered tremendous changes that eventually led to an Ottoman
style called talik after 1600. The paper investigates the reception and evolution of nasta'liq
calligraphy in Turkey from the reign of Bayezid II (r. 1481-1512) to Ahmed I (r.1603-17) in a time
when the transformation of the Persian script accompanied the creation of an original Ottoman visual
culture. Through the analysis of examples on various mediums and textual sources, Dr Rettig
explores how calligraphy became a tool in artistic rivalries as well as political and religious struggles
between Ottoman sultans and Safavid shahs.

About the Speaker: Dr Simon Rettig is Assistant Curator of the Arts of the Islamic World at the
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. He
received his BA from the École du Louvre in Paris and his MA and Doctorate from the Université de
Provence, France. Rettig curated the exhibition Nasta‘liq: The Genius of Persian Calligraphy at the
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (2014) and was the co-curator with Massumeh Farhad of The art of the
Qur’an: Treasures from the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts (2016). His current projects include
the exhibition The Prince and the Shah: Royal Portraits from Qajar Iran (opening February 2018) and
the preparation of a monograph on the celebrated Freer Khusraw u Shirin manuscript.

We would like to thank The Nour Foundation in association with the Islamic Art Circle at SOAS, and
the History of Art department at the University of York, for their support.

Citation: Fozia Parveen. Script United: Safavid Iran, Ottoman Turkey, and Nasta’liq Calligraphy in the Sixteenth Century. H-Mideas-
-Medieval. 01-13-2018. https://networks.h-net.org/node/8330/discussions/1238455/script-united-safavid-iran-ottoman-tur-
ey-and-nasta%E2%80%99liq
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.