Reflection on painting of the social and political transformation in the late Ottoman modernization process

There is a close relationship between the Ottoman modernization efforts and the development of Turkish painting in the late Ottoman period. According to artistic styles and academic approaches seen in Europe since the middle of the 19th century, Ottoman painters have done landscape, still life and figurative paintings in early period contemporary Turkish painting. Social and political events have occured dynamic, occasionally confrontational manner in Ottoman Empire since the second half of the 19th century. Because the attentions to political and social issues of the Ottoman artists were closely related with cultural, political, economic and social modernization experiences of the Ottoman administrators and society, social and political issues were depicted by a few artist. The Ottoman modernization has been started by Sultan Mahmud II as a government policy with the cultural consequences. After the declaration of the Tanzimat Edict with ongoing reform and modernization process, the Ottoman society lived the constitutional and parliamentary regime for a short time the announcement of Fundamental Law "Kanun-ı Esasi" in 1876. In the period of Sultan Abdulhamid II, there had been struggles beetwen traditionalist and conservative managers and the younger generation reformist intellectuals about the democratic modernization. This struggle process has been felt in literature and art in the cultural dimension. The purpose of this research is to try for identifying effects of the social and political transformation on the artists and their works in early period contemporary Turkish painting. This research is limited with artworks performed by Ottoman artists between 1838 and 1918.