A New Example Of Late Period Anatolian Wall Paintings: Kemaliye Orta Mosque

Abstract

ABSTRACT

A New Example Of Late Period Anatolian Wall Paintings: Kemaliye Orta Mosque

Kemaliye district of Erzincan is 144 km. distance from the city center . After the conquest of Anatolia by the Turks, the district remained under the conrol of the Anatolian Seljuks, İlkhans and Akkoyuns. The district, which is parallel to the river on the west coast of the Euphrates Valley, reflects the 19th century physical structure of the Ottoman Period. Orta Mosque is located on the slope from north to south near Kadı Lake in the district.

The Mosque Orta (Orta Cami) in Kemaliye district of Erzincan City, has a rectangular plan, covered by a dome with in central part. Its eastern and western spaces are covered by a flat wooden ceiling and there is in the north the narthex. The mihrab niche on the southern is overflow. In the document of the Directorate General of Foundations dated 1985, the building material of the mosque is referred to as rough stone. It is seen that cutting stone is used as covering material. The windows on the facades have a pointed arch. There is no inscription of the mosque. The building known as Orta Mosque should been built by Kiremitçi Mustafa Aga according to the archive records. In the Otto- man Archives of the Prime Ministry, the name of the mosque is called "Selatin, Orta Mosque, Kurşunlu". Based on the archival records, the architectural features of the mosque, the building will be dated to the 17th century.

In this study, the archival photographs of General Directorate of for Foundations will be utilized hand carved ornaments of the mosque will be analyzed in terms of style characteristics and they will be tried to be evaluated in terms of technique and composition. The decorati- ons of the mosque that have been discussed have not been subject to a publication before. Our aim is to identify the ornaments in the Ana- tolian wall painting in a detailed way. The mosque had hand carved ornaments applied on plasters where we were seeing westernization period effects. But incorrect repairs made in time prevented these or- naments to reach to our days. Cypress and fruittrees, crimson flowers, buds of roses, medallions, tassels, C and S curves, in addition oil lamps and columns are descriptions utilized in star-crescent ornaments. The colors as mustard yellow, blue, green, red, orange and black are used.

The ornaments seen in this mosque has different ornaments in style from the ones in İstanbul but not in understanding. Still life orland scape pictures, seen in different regions of Anatolia, are not applied in this mosque. We can understand that those working there were region local masons because were mark some disproportions and fe- ebleness and they were not perfect. In this small town of Erzincan, it is also important that art has been reduced to the public level and find a special place in public art. We can date these ornaments to the 19th century having regard to the epitaph dated 1884-86 and the style characteristics.