Description

Each volume of this attractive pamphlets with colourful art nouveau cover includes printed examples of letters or short texts and printed lines, templates and shadowed text for the students to rehearse the script in repetitive patterns.

The books offer a valuable insight in the learning techniques of the Ottoman calligraphy and every day script.

The author of the calligraphy was Ârif Hikmet (Hattat Ârif Hikmet Bey bin Hamze meaning Calligrapher Ârif Hikmet, the son of Hamze also İbn’ül-Hafız Arif Hikmet Hamza). Born in Strumica in today’s North Macedonia, he came as a child to Üsküdar, Istanbul, where he trained calligraphy at great masters of the time. In 1908, he was appointed the chief calligrapher at the large Istanbul publishing house Matbaa-I Amire. Ârif Hikmet also worked as a self-employed author of various scripts, prints and carte de visites and as a teacher in various institutions in Istanbul and later in Ankara. In 1916, Ârif Hikmet was appointed a teacher at the Highschool for Trade in Istanbul, but died from tuberculosis less than two years later.

Present are 4 parts (of?): 2, 3, 5, and 11. Özege, the bibliographer of Ottoman books, only mentions 6 parts.

We could not find any institutional examples on Worldcat.

References: TBTK; 4686 – ÖZEGE; 21239.