It is a well-known truth that Turks has been skilful in every branch of art and carried them to our day.
The art of paper-cut, which is called ‘paper filigree’, ‘silhouette-cutting’ in English, ‘L’art de la silhouette’, ‘decoupage’ in French, ‘efshan’ in Persian, ‘kaati’ in Arabic, and ‘kati’ in Turkish, has an important place in Turkish art of book ornamentation.
‘Kati’ refers to ‘cutting’ in Turkish. The art is performed by sticking the inscription or ornament to another stratum by using a special sticker called ‘muhallebi’. The person who performs the art is called as ‘efshanbür’ or ‘katta’. Even though it used to be written as ‘kati, katia, kaati, katig’ in different periods in the past, the most common spelling is ‘kati’.
While carving the paper used to be performed by ‘sharpeners’ or ‘nevregen’ in the past, at the moment a new set of tools called ‘kretuar’ is widely used. Marbled papers and other types of papers with different colours are used in carving.
Kati’ can be performed by carving one layer paper or a paper with gummed layers. In this way, more than one sample can be carved at once. The pattern which was gained after carving is called as ‘male carving’ while the place carved is named as ‘female carving’. The carvings can be seen in old books’ cover pages, albums, murakkas, manuscripts, and calligraphy tablets.
Our production benefits from the art of ‘kati’. Therefore, the reason concerning why we use the word Kaat'i in our brand is related to our mission of carrying ‘kati’ to future generations and our respect to artists who developed this fine art.