Ottoman art is characterised by a strong emphasis on floral motifs which almost completely displaced the venerable Islamic tradition of abstract geometric patterns. This can be seen in what is perhaps the most renowned of Ottoman arts, ceramics. Beginning with a restricted blue-and-white palette and motifs rooted in Chinese art, potters in the Ottoman town of Iznik developed their own distinctive aesthetic of recognisable flowers (primarily tulips, rosebuds, hyacinths and carnations) strewn casually about the object's surface. In typical Islamic fashion, this floral aesthetic was applied across all media. It was especially prominent in textiles, for example, and is seen in silk kaftans made for princes as well as cotton embroideries made for everyday use by the people.

Much Ottoman art is courtly in origin. Objects were made to add an air of superlative luxury to the lives of those in the palace, from palace officials to the sultan himself. The palace ateliers also pursued the arts of the book, producing fine Qur'ans as well as illustrated manuscripts with both secular and religious subjects. Calligraphy had particularly high prestige under the Ottomans.

Ottoman art was not, of course, limited to court production, nor to Istanbul. Damascus was an important ceramic production centre, where a palette quite different from that of Iznik was used. Similarly, the Anatolian town of Kütahya saw the rise of its own ceramic tradition after the one in Iznik had declined. Further from the imperial capital, local idioms flourished in the outlying Ottoman provinces.