Melancholy, isolation, and uncanny representations in Late Ottoman painting

This thesis examines the themes of melancholy, isolation, and unease in late Ottoman painting through selected works by artists such as Halil Pasha, Simon Hagopian, Ömer Adil, Müfide Kadri, Ahmed Ziya Akbulut, and Halid Naci. The study analyzes these themes not only as a reflection of historical and psycho-social processes such as the collapse of the empire, the pains of modernization, and identity crises, but also as an autonomous field of expression with its own aesthetic and constructive logic. Psychoanalytic, phenomenological, and socio-spatial theories are critically examined, arguing that works of art are not merely symptoms or indicators of repressed content, but rather creative acts that reveal the positive character of the image. In this context, uncanniness is not merely the return of the repressed, but also art's strategy of alienating the familiar and confronting the viewer with their own expectations through the highest degree of suggestibility. The analysis of the works reveals how the themes are varied through different aesthetic modes of expression (dramatic, lyrical, epic). While the works of Ömer Adil and Simon Hagopian focus on dramatic tension, Müfide Kadri's painting represents a lyrical mood, and Halid Naci's landscape represents an epic breadth. In conclusion, this study argues that melancholy and eeriness in late Ottoman painting constitute a creative layer superimposed on historical traumas and created by artists with a universal artistic instinct, and that the power of these works lies in this irreducible aesthetic language that reflects the complexity of life.