Istanbul - Day 5 - The Blue Mosque
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Picture 1 -
Actually correctly called the Sultan Ahmed mosque- after Ahmed the first, who commissioned its construction - most people call it the Blue mosque because of the colour scheme of the decoration, you're going to have to take my word for this. It was completed in 1616 - late for a mosque firmly of the Ottoman classical tradition. Perhaps no great surprise - the guy in charge of design and construction, Mehmed Aga, was trained by Sinan. The greatest of Ottoman mosque architects. If you are keen eyed you might be thinking - is that an Egyptian obelisk in the foreground? That's exactly what it is. The open ground in front of the mosque was the site of Constantine's hippodrome. They put various interesting things brought - well stolen - from around the empire and laid them along the 'spina' - the central line of the track. It was made in roughly 1500 bce near Aswan. Constantine originally sent one to Rome - where it still is - and one to Alexandria. It was Theodesius who moved it to its present site around 400 ce - amusingly enough they broke it in transit, it's shorter than it was originally. Finally - the building has six minarets. No great problem you would of thought - but at the time so did the Grand mosque in Mecca. To emulate that would be seen as - at best - hubris, if not down right impiety. When this was pointed out to Ahmed - he came up with a genius solution - we'll pay for a seventh in Mecca. Seven there are to this day.
Picture 2 -
The main prayer hall - it's difficult to show the sense of space created and the exquisite use of light built in by the architect.The men in the far ground are doing optional prayers. Non muslims are not allowed in during the five mandatory attendances for salah each day. Fair enough.
Picture 3 -
Roof detail. As is commonly understood, Islam generally doesn't do figurative art - but this has been slightly deviated from here - the hand-painted Iznik tiles go from strictly geometrical and abstract to feature vegetal and fruit patterns. Iznik tiles were considered the finest in the Ottoman world for decorating mosques - the Greeks used to call the place Nicaea, a lovely irony if you know your early church history.
Picture 4 -
Man at prayer, it's this sort of picture that reminds me of why I still use rangefinder film cameras. They are not far off silent in operation. I would have been horrified if I had upset him in his devotional duties but I needed a figure to anchor the picture. Try it yourself, put your thumb over the guy and see what happens to the composition - it falls apart. Leicas - I also use modern Voigtlanders - are discrete and intimate when taking pictures in this sort of situation. Few other types of camera allow this.
If you have got this far - thank you for looking and reading. Don't worry, the end is in sight. Tomorrow will be the last post in this thread by me. Anybody else is welcome to add to it. cheers - I.
@Floid_Maniac @William Dobson @Rufus