Woman figure in two Ottoman miniature painters

Abstract

This paper aims to display of woman figure in two 18th century Ottoman painters’ works –Abdulcelil Levni and Abdullah Buhari– in terms of art, gender and cultural encounters. My thesis is that although these paintings reveal many important points about the period such as sexuality, gender, perception of woman, symbolic meanings of dresses, sociocultural hierarchies, visual and contextual changes from past to 18th century and also within the century, it should be investigated that how wecan scent out similarities of gender issue in focus of female figures in the Ottoman world with theother variations of it for example in Safavid and Greek women representations. In this way, it can bepossible to explain this viewpoint with the concepts of encounter, mobility and connection. Thus, thispaper’s scope will consist of a struggle to reclaim historical, cultural and artistic perspectives over themain topic.