Theses supervised by Prof. Dr. Günsel Renda
11 theses · Koç University
An intellectual history of late Ottoman painting: Mekteb-i Harbiye and the development of realism
This study aims to examine how military painters' educational and intellectual backgrounds who graduated from Mekteb-i Harbiye (the Imperial Military Academy) opened in 1834 shaped their approach to painting. I am trying to explain the role of painting lessons, the sources they feed on, and Harbiye's view of the painting by questioning the factors that are effective in the preferences of the military painters, who mostly painted landscapes and still-lifes in the rich visual culture of the nineteenth century. I evaluate the courses related to modern painting from the curricula between 1845 to 1877 within the scope of science and functionality that prevailed after the Tanzimat (Reorganization) period (1839-1876). In this context, the study attempts to explain the dynamics in which the Ottoman Muslim population internalized modern painting and the realist attitude; on the other hand, it emphasizes that modern painting is seen as a tool in the modernization policy rather than an artistic activity in Harbiye. Keywords: Harbiye, military painters, realism, landscape, still life, aniconism, modernization, functionality, knowledge production
A Sixteenth-century album to Constantinople: MS. Bodl. Or. 430 at the Bodleian Library
This thesis presents the first detailed study on a long-overlooked travel album housed at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Catalogued under the shelf-mark MS. Bodl. Or. 430 it is a leatherbound codex composed of one hundred and ninety-two folios, including sixty-two illustrations pertaining in one way or another to the city of Istanbul. It hopes to bring to light an exceptionally informative example of early modern travel albums. It is believed that the Bodl. Or. 430 can prove additive to lively discussions around historical topics including the circulation of portraiture, naval history, the cartographic imaginary, the built environment and urbanism. Further, through a comparative methodology it looks to study the album and assess issues around its dating, patronage and authorship. Finally, it seeks to contribute to the growing study of travel albums, a field that is becoming attune to the complex processes of intellectual and material transmission that have informed their production as an early modern art historical phenomenon. The thesis is completed with running translations from the original Latin, an index of the Album's illustrative content and a full transcription of the text. These, it is hoped, may provide avenues for further scholarly analysis.
Walters Art Museum'deki Kitâb-ı Bahriye: İstanbul ve Kahire
In the thesis, I conduct single-manuscript study of the Walters Art Museum's Kitâb-ı Bahriye, or Book of Sea Navigation, (W.658) an atlas of sea charts and seafaring texts by the Ottoman sea admiral Piri Reis. I argue the manuscript, which is based on the 1526 edition of Piri Reis' work and made during the reign of Mahmud I (1730-1754), has ornamentation and topography reminiscent of eighteenth-century Ottoman architectural styles, print culture, and contemporaneous Ottoman painting. I contend that the interplay of past and present, sixteenth and eighteenth century influences, and painting and print within both the text and image creates a unique and multifaceted eighteenth-century viewer experience. On the foundation of my single-manuscript study, I conduct a dual art historical and urban historical study of the Walters' Kitâb-ı Bahriye sea charts of Istanbul and Cairo, which are elaborately painted city views vastly different in style, perspective, aesthetic, and relationship to the manuscript's text. My study reveals that urban spatial practices, like architectural patronage and imperial use of the city, influenced the Walters' Istanbul and Walters' Cairo's singular depictions, reflecting differing Ottoman imperial engagement with the urban landscape. The result is not two views of eighteenth-century cities, but rather two eighteenth-century painted views of cities with two centuries worth of urban development inventively and originally applied. This thesis is the first singular art historical study of the entire Walters' Kitâb-ı Bahriye (text and image) and the first work on a Kitâb-ı Bahriye manuscript contextualized within its temporal, social, urban and art historical context.
Şirketlerin sanata yatırımı: Türk bankalarının sanat koleksiyonlarına dair eleştirel bir inceleme
Şirketlerin sanata yatırım yapmaları, günümüz iş ortamında küresel bir eğilim olmakla birlikte, kurumsal imaj ve prestijlerini geliştirmek için oluşturdukları stratejileri açısından da çok önemlidir. Bugün, birçok şirket, özellikle de finansal sektördeki şirketler, sanat koleksiyonlarına sahiptirler ve düzenli sanat programları yürütmektedirler. Bu koleksiyonlar çağdaş kurum kültürü içinde çok farklı şekilde işlev görmekte ve sanat piyasasına etkileri yönünden de büyük bir potansiyele sahiptirler. Bu bağlamda, bu tez Türk bankalarının sahip olduğu sanat koleksiyonlarını inceler. Amaç, bankaların sanat koleksiyonerliğine dair eleştirel bir inceleme elde etmek, özellikle de bankaların sanat koleksiyonu oluşturma ve geliştirme amaçlarını ortaya çıkarmak, bu koleksiyonların Türk sanatı ve sanatçısını desteklemedeki rollerini irdelemek ve de sanatla ilişkilerin bankaların sektörel faaliyetlerine etkisini ortaya çıkarmaktır. Çalışmada elde edilen sonuçlar ilgili literatür içerisinde tartışılır, sanat koleksiyonlarının ve sanat programlarının geliştirilmesi için bankalara öneriler sunulur.
Onyedinci yüzyılda İngiltere'de basılmış kitaplardaki Osmanlı sultanı portreleri
This study concentrates on the analysis of Ottoman sultan portraits in books printed in seventeenth-century England. In this era, as a result of the improving relationships between England and the Ottoman Empire through trade and politics, the interest of the English in the Ottoman Empire increased. This interest stimulated the publication of books on the Ottoman Empire by English scholars, diplomats and travelers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Some of those books included illustrations depicting the Ottoman sultans. This thesis aims to place the portraits of the Ottoman sultans in seventeenth century English publications into the corpus of visual representation of the Ottoman rulers, both in Europe and the Ottoman Empire, from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. Through questioning the existence of a common iconography in visual representations of the Ottoman sultans until the eighteenth century and the compliance of the portraits in English publications to this iconographical language, this study demonstrates the possible sources for those portraits in Europe and reveals the aesthetical exchange between the Ottoman and European portraits of the Ottoman sultans.
Yıldızı düşük imparatorluklar: Bizans ve Osmanlı İmparatorlukları'nda astrolojinin kültürler arası incelemesi
Proposed study examines the similarities and differences in astrology between Ottoman and Byzantine empires. The questions addressed will start with how they defined astrology. Since the borders between astronomy and astrology were not as certain as it is now this is an important question to start. Then how astrology was perceived in both societies will be examined. The practitioners of astrology are also important as a result who important astrologers were and what were their duties or work is another chapter in the discussion. How the characteristics of Zodiac signs are interpreted and how they were explained is another point of inquiry. Finally the astrological illustrations will be investigated in order to show the possible interactions between the empires in question. A sixteenth century ottoman manuscript, Metali'ü 's-Sa'adet ve Yenabiü's-Siyadet by Seyyid Mehmet bin Emir Hasan Suudi, and a twelfth century Byzantine astrological poem by John Kamateros will be used as primary sources for the characteristics of Zodiac signs. In terms of illustrations, the aforementioned Metali'ü 's-Sa'adet provides very valuable sources and for the Byzantine illustrations a fourteenth century manuscript, Ambrosianus H 57 sup., among the few illustrated Byzantine astrological treatises will be benefitted. Even both cultures inherited the same Hellenistic heritage in terms of the science; the evolution of it might differ. Proposed study is a descriptive work which answers aforementioned questions and ends with an analysis by the author.
Petrol ve sanat, Körfez Arap ülkelerinde çağdaş sanat müzeleri, vaka analizi: Katar ve Birleşik Arap Emirlikleri
This thesis examines the state and future of the Contemporary Art museums in the Arab Gulf. It provides a framework for understanding the collections and socio-political aims behind the formation of the new art museums in the region. In the last decade Arab Gulf countries became the center of attention in the art world with their grandiose museum projects. These new museums are in the spotlight with their designs by star architects such as Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid, blockbuster exhibitions, expensive art commissions and partnerships with important western institutions such as the Louvre, British Museum and Guggenheim. In contrast to their contemporary image, Arab Gulf countries lack museum traditions, art education and collection culture. This conflicted nature of the museums raise questions about the patrons, museum 's missions, curatorial concepts and audience. For the museum case studies, this thesis focuses on Mathaf: Modern Arab Art Museum of Qatar and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi of UAE. They are investigated in terms of architecture, location, curatorial concept, art collection, management and ideology. These museums have similarities as well as differences. Both museums are part of major urban transformation projects and are a subject of cultural prestige in the global art world. Their curatorial concentration on Contemporary Arab Art puts them into a strategic position for writing the history of Arab art and museum studies.
Diplomatik hediyeleşmeden Osmanlı pazarına saatler
The focus of this thesis is on clocks that were sent to the Ottoman Empire by the Europeans either as a diplomatic gift or an object of the Ottoman market in the 18th and 19th centuries. This time period, representing intense diplomatic relations between the Ottoman Empire and Europe, led to a change in the role of clocks from diplomatic gift to object for the Ottoman market with the establishment of temporary and permanent European embassies in the Ottoman Empire and ambassador visits. Gift-giving was a prerequisite for reception ceremonies in the Ottoman Empire. Highly-valued objects – such as textiles, jewelry and furniture – that reflected the artistic and cultural identity of civilizations were generally the preferred diplomatic gifts. Clocks were also among the gifts by European rulers for the Ottoman court. Different from others, however, the clock is not only an object that is simply a gift, it is also an art object that carries a cultural and artistic synthesis between the Ottoman Empire and Europe. There are innumerable clocks that were sent to the Ottoman Empire, but their numbers increased, especially after they were produced by the Europeans to be sold in the Ottoman market. This increase is because the Ottomans desire towards clocks as an object of daily life augmented the interest in the clock-making industry in 19th century Ottoman life. Therefore, this thesis aims to offer an artistic analysis of European clocks produced for the Ottomans, as well as Ottoman-made clocks themselves, with a focus on the clocks in the Topkapı and Dolmabahçe Palace Museums collections as well as in private collections, in order to make broader conclusions about the exchange of art and culture between the Ottoman Empire and Europe. Keywords: Gift-exchange, Clock, Ottoman Empire, Europe, Diplomacy, Trade, Economy, Art object, 18th century, 19th century, Material culture
D grubu'nu avangard kavramı ve modernist sanat akımları üzerinden Türkiye'nin ulus inşası bağlamında yeniden düşünmek (1933-1951)
This present study examines the unique position of Group D, from its founding in 1933 until its dissolution in 1951, within the revolutionary environment of the early Republican period in connection to the avant-garde and the twentieth century modernist art movements that were influential in Turkish context. The early years of the Turkish Republic, distinguished by the single-party regime of the Republican People's Party (RPP), revealed a particular milieu where the cultural politics of the regime and its support for the arts had far reaching consequences on the modernist premise of Group D within the nation-building project of Turkey. This thesis firstly investigates the voyage of the avant-garde to understand its anarchist and revolutionary, yet alternating nature in an attempt to set the ground for the avant-garde movements under analysis. Then, the thesis explores the 'revolutionary consciousness' of the Republican period and the artistic milieu in which Group D emerged to raise questions of new art, national art, and state-supported exhibitions and events. Finally, the last chapter examines the artistry of Group D against the influential modernist art movements in the Republican period with a focus on Cubism to reveal the group's unique intellectual stance and artistic production. Hence, the phases which Group D went through from the early 1930s until the late 1940s are investigated to reveal how the once rebellious disposition of the so-called avant-garde Group D was altered over time due to its enhanced connection to the Academy of Fine Arts and the cultural politics of the RPP under the rising nationalist agenda of the period.
Dini bir mekanın devlet müzesine dönüştürülme sürecinin Mevlana Müzesi üzerinden anlatımı
Museums are acknowledged to be very effective tools in rendering a certain ideology from the beginning of their emergence as a concept. When it is about museums with strong religious associations or which were converted from religious sites, however, the situation becomes even more intricate. Turkey in that respect provides the researcher with invaluable opportunities since it houses several examples which are specific to this country in the sense that they represent a precise junction of museums, religion and politics. Mevlana Museum in Konya is one powerful example of such sites: it is a museum, it has strong religious connotations and it is a potent means of political image making. It is intriguing, thus, to evaluate the case of the Mevlana Museum and the changes applied to its image, in order to reflect the ways in which the political potential of museums has been realized in a state museum which was once a sacred site. Hence, the foremost aim of this thesis is to analyze the ways in which the positioning of religion within the Mevlana Museum has been serving in the production of ideologies with an emphasis on the changes that the museum has been undergoing during the last decade. In doing so, the study primarily draws upon the media sources and in-situ observations.
Seremoni ve fotoğraf ile sultana erişebilmek: Sultan V. Mehmed Reşad (1909-1918) döneminde yeni bir imparatorluk imajının yayılması
This study aims to examine the photographs of imperial ceremonies during Sultan Mehmed V Reşad's reign and their role in the creation of a new, more accessible public image of the sultan. Sultan Mehmed V Reşad ascended the throne in 1909 during a particularly turbulent era of the Empire when it was troubled with internal and external conflict. In a time of hardship, Sultan Mehmed V Reşad's ceremonies created feelings of solidarity within the audience along with a feeling of reverence for the sultan and the Ottoman dynasty. Ceremonies are a tool for those in power to define and describe themselves. For governments, the political use of ceremonies is to display and reinforce legitimacy. Sultan Mehmed V Reşad and the Committee of Union and Progress were direly in need to legitimize their power, and ceremonies were an excellent opportunity for this. Mehmed V Reşad was very much unlike his predecessor in that he wanted to create a more accessible image, lifting Sultan Abdülhamid II's restrictions imposed on printing photographs of the sultan and appearing in many public ceremonies. Therefore, photojournalism became a very important tool for the propagation of the sultan's image which mainly focused on the numerous ceremonies the sultan attended, ranging from religious Islamic ceremonies to diplomatic visits of foreign heads of state. This study compiles photographs from three Ottoman periodicals depicting Sultan Mehmed V Reşad attending ceremonies. Overall, this thesis argues that ceremonies and their photographs were used to disseminate Sultan Mehmed V Reşad's imperial image which relied on visibility and accessibility to sway public opinion in his favor.