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Buy/gift a digital subscription Login to the Digital EditionThe Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia (IAMM) has claimed its second Osman Hamdi Bey painting. The curator Lucien de Guise reflects on the enduring fascination of the Ottoman world, real and imagined.
Wildly popular in the 19th century, Orientalist art fell out of favour, dismissed as a Western fantasy of the “exotic East”. But it is now finding renewed interest among collectors, and much of this interest comes from the very places supposedly denigrated long ago by artists from Europe and North America. One artist of impeccable pedigree is in especially vigorous demand. Often considered the leading Orientalist of the lands once called the “Orient”, Osman Hamdi Bey introduced a unique perspective. Among his many talents was his incorporation of Ottoman material culture into his work. As a founding museum director, the sophisticated Ottoman polymath was well acquainted with the achievements of Turkish weavers, ceramicists and calligraphers. He may not always have depicted reality, but at least he knew what it was.
The title of this piece is borrowed from the IAMM’s 2023-24 exhibition, Orientlist Paintings: Mirror or Mirage
Mardin can only be compared to such cities as Granada and Fez, filled with the palaces of merchants, studded with university colleges, guarded by mountains and fed by their springs
A ‘Constantinople’ spectacular in Victorian London, by Andrew Finkel
The mountain where Endymion still sleeps, by Ross Atabey and Rupert Scott
Faik Şenol’s camera transports Clara Robins back to Thirties Istanbul
Martyn Rix on a new wave of botanical illustrators that is transforming a nation’s appreciation of nature every species and producing paintings of selected species for publication
A show on food in art at the İşbank Museum of Painting and Sculpture is a veritable remembrance of times past
Known as the ‘Turkish Henri Cartier-Bresson’, Ara Güler roamed the streets, creating gritty portraits of everyday life
Visitors who climb the long flight of rock-hewn stairs to the monastery of Mar Musa al-Habashi in the Syrian Desert, whatever their faith, will find a place of serenity, a welcome, and frescoes to dazzle them
Istanbul’s mystique has long captivated writers, but, as an exhibition reveals, not all care to visit. Maureen Freely gives us chapter and verse
Ice cream is the feel-good food like no other, imbued with memories of the sunny days of childhood. But Turkish ice cream is especially delicious, thanks to a unique ingredient. Berrin Torolsan has the scoop
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