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TURKISH DELIGHTS
In the current climate of war and political turmoil, we forget
that the cities of Bagdad, Mosul and Herat were once great
centres of art and learning. But they, along with countless
other cities from Bukhara to the Balkans, were capitals of
culture under the successive waves of Turkish empires shown in
the RA's unprecendented exhibition, 'Turks: A Journey of a
Thousand Years, 600-1600' (22 January-12 April).
The exhibition creates an Aladdin's cave of art, revealing
exquisitely wrought work, from carpets to kaftans, jewels,
illuminated manuscripts, metalwork, sculpture and much more.
Such treasures adorned buildings ranging from the Topkapi Palace
and the great mosques to humbler Dervish lodges, caravansarais
and Buddhist shrines along the Silk Road. Yet because so few of
these works have been seen in the West before, our knowledge of
them and the cultures that created them remains limited.
For these reasons, RA Magazine has devoted a special issue to
'Turks'. In the introductory article, exhibition co-curator
David Roxburgh and writer John Freely provide a guided tour to
the four key empires covered by the exhibition. Next,
specialists provide insights into the art of each empire.
Christian 'lyler looks back to the Turkic origins in the wild
west of China. Justin Marozzi recounts the bloody conquests of
the Turco-Mongol warlord Tamerlane, victories that were followed
by mass deportations of artists to his capitals so that they
could create monuments to his power. In a way his policy worked,
for though his empire has long since vanished, the art he left
behind still speaks of his immortality. The same can be said for
the art of the Seljuks, whose love of the human image is
discussed, and, of course, for that of the Ottomans. The
architect Sinan - the Ottoman Michelangelo - created domes to
rival those he saw in Europe, says professor Gulru Necipoglu.
Robert Irwin discusses the multi-cultural ambitions of the
Ottoman sultans from Mehmet the Conqueror, who commissioned the
Venetian Gentile Bellini to paint his portrait, to Suleyman the
Magnificent, whose reign took the Turks to the gates of Vienna.
Meanwhile the Turkish-British artist Kutlug Ataman makes films
that deal with the complex, at time conflicting, identities of
his native land.
The star of the show - and an enduring enigma - remains the
elusive Muhammad of the Black Pen, whose expressive work bears
more resemblance to Goya than it does to the rest of Islamic
art. Award-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk uses fiction rather than
fact to get inside the head of the artist and the characters he
drew. 'The stories we once belonged to have been lost; lament
his nomadic heroes. Let us hope this exhibition can help us find
them again.
Sarah Greenberg
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