Mustafa Râkımمصطفى راقم

The revolutionary of the large scripts. Râkım took the monumental Thuluth Jali — until then a stiff, enlarged page script — and rebuilt its anatomy for walls: deeper curves, dramatic stacking, breathing space measured for the eye at twenty metres. He redesigned the imperial tughra into the balanced form every later sultan used. On the mosques of Istanbul his panels still read as if written this morning. Modern Jali composition is, in essence, his invention.

Key works: Nusretiye Mosque inscriptions; the reformed tughra; Fatih tomb panels.