Turkish bath Turc" ("The Turkish Bath"), depicts these spaces as magical and sexual. There are several women touching themselves or one another sensually while some dance to music played by the woman in the centre of the painting. Western male artists allowed their imaginations to run free. The hammam combines the functionality and the structural elements of its predecessors in Anatolia, the Roman thermae and baths, with the Central Asian Turkic tradition of steam bathing, ritual cleansing and respect of water From the 10th century, Turkish kingdoms began to proliferate in Anatolia in lands conquered from the Byzantine Greeks, leading eventually to
Turkish literature this tradition. The standard poetic forms—for poetry was as much the dominant genre in the written tradition as in the folk tradition—were derived either directly from the Persian literary tradition (the "gazel" غزل; the "mesnevî" مثنوی), or indirectly through Persian from the Arabic (the "kasîde" قصيده). However, the decision to adopt these poetic forms wholesale led to two important further consequences: Out of this confluence of choices, the Ottoman Turkish language—which was always highly distinct from standard Turkish—was effectively born. This style of writing under Persian and Arabic influence came to be known as "Divan literature" (Turkish: "divan edebiyatı"), "dîvân"