Simplicity and richness: the Royal Academy's first exhibition of Islamic art for over seventy years is a sumptuously beautiful blockbuster

Apollo, March, 2005 by Philippa Scott

The last time the Royal Academy hosted an exhibition which comes under the umbrella term 'Islamic' was its 1931 blockbuster 'International Exhibition of Persian Art', which, like 'Turks', included pre-Islamic art and influences, as well as many works of art created by non-Muslims living and working within what became predominantly Islamic environments. Since 1931 the RA has hosted 236 major exhibitions and many smaller shows, and seventy-four years have passed. Well, better late than never, for the timing of this exhibition, as Turkey stands on the brink of EU membership, seems almost fated. Only last autumn this time slot was allocated to an Egyptian exhibition, which was suddenly cancelled, and 'Turks' was planned and assembled in record time, no mean feat for such a huge and impressive show.

Europe, and the European Union, although predominantly Christian, is a complex mix of ethnicity and religions, as is the secular Islamic democracy of modern Turkey, and 'Turks' sets out to demonstrate this point, in a rich display introducing the many different peoples, cultures and religious influences which the Turks assimilated and incorporated into their daily life and their art. The exhibition focuses on the thousand years between 600 and 1600, and introduces the Turks in a way that no previous exhibition has set out to do.

The Turks are neither Arab nor Persian. They arrived eventually in Anatolia, but their origins lie in Turan, a region between the Caspian Sea and the Mongolian desert, and their Ural-Altaic language is distinct from the Indo-European or Semitic language groups. The interaction between the Eurasian pastoral nomads and the surrounding sedentary societies is a major theme in world history. Nomads were not only raiders and conquerors, but also transmitted commodities, ideas, technologies and other cultural items, while assimilating such aspects as religion, technology and political culture from their settled neighbours. Originally shamanistic, the Turks encountered Buddhism, Manichaeism, Judaism and Christianity, absorbing many of their ideas and beliefs, and recording them in their arts.

In many ways 'Turks' represents the fabric of the great trading routes known collectively as the Silk Road, and it is charmingly apt to find a fifth/sixth-century painted frieze from near Xinkiang representing a Sasanian motif familiar to textile enthusiasts, the ubiquitous pearled or beaded roundels containing beribboned or garlanded animals--in this particular example, birds. Versions of this pattern were copied by silk weavers all along the Silk Route to China and beyond, and energetic Sogdian traders (a Turkic tribe), who were the main Central Asian go-betweens for several hundred years from the fifth century onwards, brought their own versions of these silks to the market of Byzantium.

The first rooms of the exhibition also introduce the Uighurs, a powerful confederation of Turkic tribes whose chief religion was Manichaeism. Uighur territory bordered that of Tang China, many Sino-Uighur political marriages were recorded, and Uighur patrons influenced the art of Dunhuang, represented here by fragments of tenderly painted frescoes, strongly influenced by Buddhism, another religion that flourished in Central Asia. The fresco of a Siddha, and a tiny silk fragment showing a Lokapala's companion, are both clad in tiger and leopard skins, a theme which continues throughout the story of Turkish art and history, eventually stylised to great effect by the Ottomans. The Uighur empire collapsed in 840, and the Tang empire in 907.

By the ninth century, Turkish mercenaries were a considerable presence in the Middle East in service to local rulers and governors. No Muslim could be a slave, and so by converting to Islam they gained their freedom.

The Seljuk family served several Muslim 'governors' before seizing power for themselves. They subsequently ruled a swathe of territory from India to Arabia as the Great Seljuks (1040 to 1194) and also settled in Anatolia, where they were known as the Seljuks of 'Rum'. The intimate cave-like setting of the first rooms opens into a more palatial space in the Seljuk room, hung with thirteenth-century carpets, massive doors, and displaying a wealth of manuscripts, metalwork and ceramics. On his route west from Persia in 1271 and 1272 Marco Polo observed that the best and most beautiful carpets were made in the lands of the Turks. The boldness and clarity of colour and design and the confident application of squared kufic script as border patterns make these as arresting as wall decoration as they would be on the floor of a mosque or palace. Animal rugs similar to those exhibited appear in many quattrocento paintings: for example, a fresco by Domenico di Bartolo in the Spedale della Scala, Siena, painted in 1440/44, shows a dragon and phoenix rug similar to that on show here. Seljuk iconography is lively with animals, birds and mythical creatures such as harpies, siren sphinxes, and winged beings, as Central Asian shamanistic concepts merged with the ancient mythologies of the Middle East.