Turkish Hand Craft - 1

Ebru has long been the name given to the authentic Turkish art of paper.

It is not possible to tell exactly when people started painting papers using the techniques of ebru which is one of the most important of paper decorating arts. Although it is possible to find ebru papers in the bindings of centuries old books, these cannot be used to date ebru papers as these books may be restored years after they have been written and ebru papers on their bindings may have been used during a later repair.

The Turkish art of ebru which is known to be practiced in Istanbul for more than five hundred years and known as "Turkish paper" for centuries in the western world certainly has a tradition which is passed from generation to generation by a master and apprentice relationship. The most important evidence that ebru is a Turkish art with origins from Central Asia is its terminology in the Europen languages. The words "battal", "tarakli", get-gel", kumlu" etc. are all used to mean the same thing in almost all countries where ebru is practiced.

Ebru is an art which cannot be learnt by reading or listening as all other Ottoman Arts. It is extremely difficult as regards to its performance and effected by various parameters which are outside the control of a beginner. In order to overcome all these difficulties and guide the novice marbler to understand what he/she is doing so that technically perfect results are achieved, the guidance of a master is needed. It is seen that there is no marbler without a master and the tradition is passed from generation to generation by a master and apprentice relationship if our history of ebru is examined. Ebru learnt without a master has no relation with our tradition.

One of the most important characteristics of our tradition is the use of natural earth pigments which belong to the chemical family of metal-oxides and other natural dyeing material all of which are not chemically soluble in water. The primary reason for using earth pigments is that the marblers lived centuries ago had no choice of making dyes other than the nature itself. Later marblers used dyes of the same origin to imitate their predecessors, to continue the tradition in terms of colour and appearance and to make the marbled papers permanent. It will be useful to clarify what is meant by "permanent". During production of ready to use, off the shelf fabricated dyes, various acids and casein are added and by experience, it has been found that these acids burn the paper hence the binding or the calligraphy where ebru is used.