Walk around Istanbul and you notice them everywhere, no, not doner kebabs, but tiles. They line mosque interiors, cover palace walls and turn up in corners you might otherwise walk past without a second glance. At the Ottoman-era historical Sultan Ahmed Mosque, they are part of the architecture, thousands of blue-and-white tiles giving the building its popular name — Blue Mosque. At Topkapi Palace, they appear in more intimate spaces, framing rooms and passageways once used by the Ottoman court. Together, they offer an easy introduction to one of Turkey’s most distinctive artistic traditions: Iznik ceramics.
Iznik takes its name from the Anatolian town where these ceramics were made. Pottery had been produced there for centuries, but the craft really came into its own under the Ottomans from the late 15th century onwards. The sultans wanted ceramics grand enough for mosques, palaces and public buildings, and that demand helped turn Iznik into one of the empire’s major artistic centres.
What made the tiles different was not just the painting, but what lay underneath it. Instead of relying largely on ordinary clay, Iznik craftsmen developed a bright, quartz-rich body that gave them a clean white surface to work on. The quartz content is at about 85 per cent, mixed with clay and silica.
Making one is a surprisingly long process. First comes the base, or biscuit, which is shaped and then left to dry for several days. It is coated with an underglaze, dried again and fired in a kiln. The patterns are then transferred onto the surface, traditionally using perforated drawings and charcoal dust. The outlines are painted in black before the colours go in. Cobalt gives the deep blue, while iron oxide helps create the distinctive red for which later Iznik work became famous.
Then comes the glaze. It is called sır, a Turkish word that also means ‘secret’. The original formula was apparently never properly written down and was passed from one generation of craftsmen to another. Once the piece is coated and fired again, the colours intensify and the surface develops the smooth, almost luminous finish that makes Iznik so recognisable. The glaze also protects the ceramic, which helps explain why so much historic work has survived remarkably well.
That durability is part of the fascination. Ceramics are among the objects that survive particularly well archaeologically, including underwater. Historic tiles recovered from shipwreck contexts in Turkish waters have remained recognisable centuries after the vessels themselves disappeared, which says something about how well-fired and glazed ceramics can withstand time.
Original Iznik, unsurprisingly, is now highly collectible. Pieces regularly appear at major international auctions, and Christie’s has sold important examples for substantial sums. A particularly notable Iznik dish dating to around 1555 sold for £422,500 in 2015. What began as decoration for imperial buildings is today treated as museum-grade art.
Leave Istanbul for Cappadocia, and the ceramic story changes completely.
In Avanos, the material comes not from a brilliant white quartz body but from the reddish earth around the Kizilirmak, or Red River. Pottery has been made here for thousands of years, with the tradition generally traced back to the Hittite period. Even today, Avanos is packed with workshops where potters continue to shape clay using techniques passed down through generations.
At Kybele Ceramic, a 200-year-old workshop set inside a cave, there are rooms carved into the soft volcanic rock, shelves crowded with plates, bowls and jugs, and potters working at low wheels. Visitors can watch clay being centred and pulled into shape, or try the wheel themselves.
Back in the day, only if a man could make a pot washe worthy of earning a living and so a prospective groom had to master throwing clay before asking for a girl’s hand, explains Duru.
The pottery begins with local clay, which is prepared before being placed on the wheel and shaped by hand. After drying and firing, the pieces are decorated, glazed and fired again. The throwing may happen relatively quickly, but the decoration certainly does not. At Kybele, designing and colouring a piece can take up to ten weeks depending on its size and complexity.
One piece immediately stands out: the halkalı, a curving Hittite-style jug with a large circular opening through its centre. Yusuf Vehbi Duru, a sixth-generation potter at Kybele, explains that the shape has a ritual history. The Hittites worshipped the sun god, he says, and designed the jug in a circular form to represent the sun. They would fill it with grape juice and leave it on a mountain so that sunlight could pass through the opening, believing the drink had then been blessed.
The patterns painted onto Avanos pottery also have their own meanings. “Pomegranates represent fertility, carnations represent love and a clean heart, tulips were first grown in Anatolia and are known as the paradise flower,” says Duru.
There is room for experimentation too. In one of Kybele’s display rooms, Duru switches off the lights and some of the ceramics begin to glow. Phosphorus has been added to the pieces, giving them a fluorescent finish. It is a thoroughly modern touch in a workshop built around a craft that is thousands of years old.
While the ceramic traditions of Iznik and Avanos may have different histories, in both places the story begins the same way: with earth, fire and someone who knows exactly what to do with them!