Buy or gift a stand-alone digital subscription and get unlimited access to dozens of back issues for just £18.99 / $18.99 a year.
Please register at www.exacteditions.com/digital/cornucopia with your subscriber account number or contact subscriptions@cornucopia.net
Buy a digital subscription Go to the Digital EditionIşik Güner gave up engineering to travel the world making exquisite botanical paintings which have brought her international fame. But tragedy in the Himalayas led her to return to the beloved Black Sea valley of her youth, which this year inspired a solo exhibition of her work in the old village schoolhouse.Harriet Rix, herself from a distinguished botanical family, was there to celebrate
Among the ancient forests above the Black Sea, where the tea plantations and great stone-built mansions of the Hemşin tribe tumble down precipitous valley sides to the turbulent waters of the Fırtına river (the Storm), a singular artist has mounted a singular exhibition. Işık Güner is one of the finest botanical artists alive today, whose work in China and Scotland, Chile and Romania has been widely acclaimed, but Habitat is her first exhibition in Çamlıhemşin, her home and the place she describes as her environmental niche, the place where she fits in. When not living in Istanbul and Ankara, Işık was based for years in her grandparents’ chestnut konak, until last month, when she finished building her own house on the side of the mountain, just above the Güner settlement where her cousins, aunts and relations still live.
The chestnut houses and occasional stone konaks of the valley are all embedded in the mix of plants that inspired the exhibition; beyond small tea plantations, a lush undergrowth of heracleum and colchicum, buttercup, vetch and galium grows under chestnuts, beech and fir and across the small clearing of the graveyard by the road. Habitat is based on the detail of this amazing diversity. “Is there any plant that you would be willing to lose from this composition?” Işık asks.
Don McCullin and Barnaby Rogerson travel back in time, elated by the enduring power of Mithras, god of the sun
Sweet but with a tang, boza is a favourite winter drink. Restorative, gently uplifting, it inspires mellow conversation and is a cornerstone of Istanbul life, while the nocturnal cry of its street-sellers, a not-quite-distant memory, is still the stuff of poetry. By Berrin Torolsan
Joachim Meyer, of Copenhagen’s David Collection, on the powerful aura of Islamic calligraphy
An exhibition in London reveals the Islamic art that captivated William Morris. By Thomas Roueché
She was the wife of the Sultan’s court painter and mother to four children. But Elisa Zonaro was also an artist in her own right, a pioneering female photographer in Abdülhamid II’s Istanbul. Philip Mansel celebrates a free-spirited trailblazer
Cornucopia works in partnership with the digital publishing platform Exact Editions to offer individual and institutional subscribers unlimited access to a searchable archive of fascinating back issues and every newly published issue. The digital edition of Cornucopia is available cross-platform on web, iOS and Android and offers a comprehensive search function, allowing the title’s cultural content to be delved into at the touch of a button.
Digital Subscription: £18.99 / $18.99 (1 year)
Subscribe now