Abstract

Nationality is way by which a nation approaches the values that a culture has acquired in the course of history. It could be said to be a question of a content as well as method. One of its most important characteristics is that artistic productions of communities reproduce themselves from themselves, the preservation of an eclectic structure between, past, present and future. This structure distinguishes the art of each nation from the art of other nations, and enables each community to form a medium of its own. All the past and present communities have influenced one another via cultural exchange. It can be maintained that this change in the national characteristic of communities is more apparent in the Turkish society that it is in other societies. The most important factor here is that it shaped its culture and art in accordance with the Islamic art after Manichaeism and Buddhism met Asian, African and European cultures in the empires of the Seljuks and the Ottomans, and then choosing to be a Western community instead of an Eastern one. Tradition and art carry cultures of communities to the future. The “miniature” is the painting that Turks formed within their own tradition. The miniature originated in the Hun Empire and the Gokturk Empire and the Uighur as an art of painting based on carving and decoration. Uighur frescoes dating from the 8th century A.D. are the first examples of Turkish miniature painting. In the Seljuk and Ottoman periods, on the other hand, it was used in the decoration of manuscripts and illustration. Turkish art deviated from its traditional roots after the adoption of European culture and turned towards painting (pentür). The art of miniature enjoys a distinct status and importance as the traditional basis of national artistic expression. Today, many contemporary Turkish artists produce works on this basis. This study will explain the concept of nationality in the Turkish art of miniature and then the Turkish painting.