The casuality of expressionist approaches in Turkish painting

Having first emerged in Turkish painting in the early-20th century in line with formal influences acquired from the west and then developed and shaped within their own socio-cultural dynamics, expressionist approaches were not exactly similar to German Expressionism, but rather it bears temporal and original traces of a different cultural process and perspective. Since a work of art has an inevitable connection with the cultural structure of the society to which it belongs, expressionist approaches in Turkish painting had taken shape in their own dialect and artistic climate. This situation dovetailed with the inner reality inherent in expressionism. Nevertheless, unlike their examples in the west, the expressionist tendencies put forward by Turkish artists didn't emerge as a result of breaking with an intellectual and social accumulation or tradition, or didn't aim to create a revolution in art and society. Emotional and social reactions that reached an explosive point in Germany in the early-20th century reached a saturation point to express themselves through different dynamics that the Turkish artist would encounter in later years. This situation revealed that the phenomenon of Expressionism can not be examined in the same parallel in both cultures. In taking the relevant view as a reference and making determinations confirming it within the subject headings, this thesis study aims to make a grouping in the context of factors that led Turkish painters to Expressionism, and to delve into the phenomenon of Expressionism in Turkish painting in light of said determinations. Such a grouping was deemed necessary in an effort to reveal the impulsive force behind the Expressionist orientation and differentiating it. In taking into account the works of the painters, their lives and the social conditions of the period, analyzes determined those Turkish painters who exhibited Expressionism-style characteristics in their works could be classified and examined under four main groups. In the Conclusion section, the groupings highlighted in the thesis are analyzed by focusing on the social dynamics of the period, whereas facts that direct or restrict the Expressionist expansion of the artists in question are analyzed in light of the changing cultural and socio-economic structure of the era.