The Art of Marbling (Ebru)

Marbling (ebru) plays a noteworthy role in Turkish art history and is basic to understanding the Turkish concept of beauty. It expresses the Turkish perception of beauty through paper. Marbling manifests kinds of natural forms of beauty, like colorful patterns on water, transferred to paper.

For those with an artistic eye, it sometimes resembles clouds in the sky, veins in exquisite marble (hence the translation “marbling”), or a colorful flower garden. In any case, marbling has supplied endless opportunities for artists over the last seven hundred years to express themselves.

The paper used in Arifi’s “Guy-i Cevgan” (ca. 1540) in the Topkapi Palace Museum collection is important in the history of Turkish Ebru. The edge of every page in this work has exquisite marbling, indicating that the marbling was done before he wrote. Marbling is one of the old Turkish arts acknowledged in the book “Tertib-i Risale-yi Ebri” (1608), a compendium of the art of marbling.

What makes marbling so impressive is the mindful usage of materials so that the color of pigment clusters can be squeezed or dispersed. This involves many factors: 1) the right quantity of gum tragacanth, 2) knowledge of pigments, 3) the suitable ratio of water to pigment, 4) the type and amount of gall, 5) the expertise of the person who sprinkles the pigments into the tray, 6) most importantly, the ability of the marbler. These six factors challenge the artist to create a significant work of art.

The “master/apprentice” system, the traditional way of training students, has been largely lost in modern Turkey. Private patronage is not the best way to promote marbling and to train upcoming generations because only the privileged few have the opportunity to learn. It would be better to teach marbling in art academies, universities, and other organizations with consistent funding that allow anyone to learn this art.

The quality of Turkish marbling is well known, but because of other techniques, it differs significantly from European and Indo-Pakistani marbling. This is just one example of the diversity of marbling in the world, all of which expresses various aspects of beauty.

(Back to top)