On the Trail of a Folk Artist: Wall Paintings of the Mosque of Satılmış Village

Information on the folk artists who has performed the opulent hand-drawing and calligraphic ornamentation in the Mosque of Satılmış Village of Selendi District of the Province of Manisa constitutes the main subject of this study. It is known that wide variety of buildings located within the Anatolia, particularly in İstanbul, were decorated with wall paintings that started in the 18th century and became a tradition in the 19th century. However, such adornments may vary to a greater extent in terms of style and content. A distinct and highly different conception of adornment and decoration especially prevail among the buildings in rural areas and the buildings in the Ottoman capital İstanbul and metropolitans such as İzmir. Adornments make appearance including various motifs related to the dervish lodges named as folk art besides the symbols and representations expressing the Western adornment conception within many buildings located at various regions of the Anatolia, particularly the Central-Western Anatolian provinces such as Denizli, Muğla, Uşak and Kütahya. The subject of this study, that is, wall paintings and murals of the Mosque of Satılmış Village performed in 1954 is of utmost importance in terms of one of the samples embracing this tradition. The affluent hand-drawn and calligraphical adornments in the mosque offer highly interesting data with its unusual symbolic motifs as well as its traditional conception of wall painting. The research has revealed various information on the identity and background of the artist, Ahmet Akbuber, who performed the adornments and decorations of the mosque. By relying on his own notes, it has been acknowledged that he was one of the leading figures of the dervish lodge serving in Demirci and he decorated with similar adornments four other mosques located within the same region. In view of the scripts and symbols used by the individuals sustaining this tradition particularly in central Anatolia, it was considered that they had been affiliated with dervish lodges. However, information on their identity appears to be quite limited. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that the affiliation of Ahmet Akbuber with Rifā‘i order in Demirci explicitly reveals the relation between the performer and the dervish lodge.
Keywords: Satılmış Village Mosque, Mural, Folk artist, Depiction, Painted decoration, Calligraphy, Iconography.