Tatar shamaili
Description:
Tatar shamaili
Shamail is a type of Tatar Muslim fine art based on Arabic calligraphy and decorated in the form of an easel painting. Suras from the Koran are traditionally embroidered on fabric, drawn with ink, printed on paper or on canvas. Muslim Tatars hang such shamaili on the walls of mosques, apartments or over the entrance to the dwelling as a kind of amulet that protects the house from various misfortunes. At the same time, the Tatar shamail cannot be considered an equivalent analogue of the icon, as well as the pagan amulet. More like art.
“Shamael” in Arabic means “quality, dignity”. Tatar shamaili is a special phenomenon that arose in the XIX century and spread only in the Middle Volga region. They came here from Turkey. At the end of the XIX century, they were very fond of in the cities, and then in the villages of the Kazan province, where shamails served as a decoration of the home. At first, they were painted only with oil paints on the reverse side of the glass, and foil was superimposed on unpainted areas for beauty. Then the shamaili printed by the typographic method received wide circulation. Many printed shamails of the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were accompanied by additional texts in the Tatar language.
