Draft: this lesson was written with AI help and has not yet been read by a human editor.
1 What your class asks
This lesson asks you to describe pathways and careers related to visual arts and the education they require. The museum offers two historical crafts, the architect and the calligrapher, taken from encyclopaedia entries; today's careers and their requirements come from your class. 1
Curriculum expectations, with their official codes
- B3.2 describe, on the basis of research, a variety of pathways and careers related to visual arts […] and the education required for these careers
2 Before you start
A thought to carry into the lesson.
3 The lesson
What did each craft need to know?
From each record, list the knowledge and skills it names, and note where the record is silent. A record that names no training is an answer too.
How would you train for a career like this today?
Pick one of the two and name a present-day career close to it. Set out the skills, the education and the training it asks, and compare them with the historical path.
Go deeper
The record on the architect keeps an order from Sinan's time: no one should build without the chief architect's knowledge. It came after buildings put up by men who had come to Istanbul from Rumeli and elsewhere fell or burned. These men worked "with a yard-stick in hand" without knowing carpentry or masonry 2. From the sixteenth century an architect, a journeyman or a master working outside the palace office needed a licence from the chief architect attesting his competence 2. A calligrapher's licence worked differently. It was written by his teacher, who named himself and gave the pupil leave to set his signature beneath his writing 3.
How do we know?
Plans survive late. Ottoman architects drew plans before building, but none of the roughly thirty plans attributed to Ottoman architects that survive is older than the eighteenth century, and most of the plans in the Topkapı archive were drawn later for repairs 2. The entry says that statements show Sinan made plans and surveys 2. Dâyezâde Mustafa Efendi reports that Sinan made a three-dimensional drawing of the Selim mosque at Edirne and presented it to the sultan 2.
Think about it
A calligrapher's licence came from his teacher, and an architect's from the chief architect. Who is better placed to say that a craftsman is ready to work alone, his own teacher or the head of the whole trade, and what is the strongest objection to your answer?
Into the museum
- The architect: the palace office, the licence and the chief architect's order.
- The calligrapher: how a pupil was licensed.
- Sinan: the chief court architect in whose time the order was issued.
Try this
Read the records on the architect and the calligrapher. Draw a path for one career, from the first lesson to the first independent work, using only what the record says.
4 Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or sent anywhere. It is for you.
In your own words: what does Architect (mi'mar) have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
The architect. The architect designs a building and oversees its construction, and was expected to know geometry, building technique and the measurement of land. In the Ottoman palace the office of architects was a school where chosen young men learned theory and practice in a master-apprentice relationship. After the Imperial Land Engineering School was founded in 1795, its graduates began to qualify as architects. What would you need to study for this career?
In your own words: what does Calligrapher (khattat) have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
Learning the hand and earning the licence. Training in calligraphy is called meshk: the master writes a model line, the pupil copies it and shows it to him. The licence is given once the pupil has copied a piece by an old master chosen by his teacher, and it is endorsed at a ceremony before a jury of calligraphers. UNESCO placed Arabic calligraphy on its intangible heritage list in 2021. What skills does this path ask for?
I can now