Mustafa Âli's Epic Deeds of Artists and New Approaches to Written Sources of Ottoman Art

This study situates the Ottoman genre of artists' biographies within a cross-cultural space to push research beyond obsessions with “genesis” and focus rather on the transverse paths that primary sources take. Revisiting Mustafa Âli's Epic Deeds of Artists (completed in 1587), the earliest Ottoman source on the lives and works of Muslim calligraphers, painters, and book binders, the article focuses on the text's creative process (as opposed to its referential content) and juxtaposes the work with its Islamic (specifically, Persian) and non-Islamic (Italian) predecessors and near-contemporaries. Contributing to conversations that aim to dispel Euro-centric bias in art-historical discourses, this juxtaposition points to the zones of convergence and divergence that disrupt, through discussions of the Deeds's shared as well as distinctive references and functions, the polarities modern scholarship has created among the written sources of pre-modern Islamic and non-Islamic art.