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Ebru is the traditional Turkish art of creating colourful patterns by sprinkling and brushing colour pigments onto a pan of oily water and then transferring the patterns to paper. Known as marbling, the designs and effects mostly include flowers, foliage, ornamentation, latticework, mosques and moons, and are used for decoration in the traditional art of bookbinding. The practitioner uses natural methods to extract colours from natural pigments, which are then mixed with a few drops of ox-gall, a kind of natural acid, before sprinkling and brushing the colours onto a preparation of condensed liquid, where they float and form swirling patterns.
Amateur Ebru Practice in Living Museum, Ankara-Beypazarı/ Turkey (October 2019)
Although there is not a clear evidence, Ebru art is believed to be born in China, Japan and India in 8th century, this can be observed in book covers and paper documents in the region, which had been coloured with traditional techniques similar to Ebru. It is believed that, today’s traditional Turkish Ebru art was born in Central Asia, in Turkistan-Buhara. Shamans in the region were doing fortune telling practices by spilling color pigments in the water, which had been first Ebru samples. Ebru art, which was born in Central Asia, came to Anatolia through the Silk Road, over Iran, and had been first practiced by Ozbek people in Uskudar province of İstanbul. This traditional art had been transferred from generation to generation by master-apprentice relationship.
Traditionally, Ebru had been used in bookcovers and book binding. In Ottoman Empire, official correspondence and government documents had been written on Ebru papers to prevent alterations. Today, it is also being used to decorate fabrics, ceramic, scarves or even carpets. You can see silk scarves painted with Ebru or decorative objects or home accessories painted with Ebru designs.
Ebru, which is being reffered as “The art of painting on water” has a major role in traditional Anatolian art. It has also been inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, in 2014.
Bibliography
UNESCO (2019) Ebru, Turkish art of marbling [online] Available from: https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/ebru-turkish-art-of-marbling-00644 (Accessed: 20 November 2019)
Derman, U. (1977) Ebru is Turkish Art. İstanbul: Akbank.
Turkey Culture Portal (2019) Ebru Art [online] Available from: https://www.kulturportali.gov.tr/portal/ebrusanati (Accessed: 20 November 2019)
Ministry of Culture & Tourism, Association of Traditional Arts (2017) Inventory of Traditional arts and crafts – Marmara region. İstanbul: Association of Traditional Arts