Mevlevis

In his studies at the Sanâyi-i Nefîse Mektebi, which he entered in 1915, Cevat Dereli worked first under Hikmet Onat and subsequently under İbrahim Çallı. Çallı played a determining role in establishing Mevlevi culture as an independent subject within Turkish painting, and his production of works depicting Mevlevi ceremonies from the 1920s onwards may be considered in a line of thematic and visual continuity with Dereli's compositions featuring the sema.

This undated work by Cevat Dereli depicts a sema ceremony. The semahane is not defined through architectural detail; instead, the scene is presented as an imagined space organised around select elements. The mutriphane, which in dervish lodges is typically situated at a higher level, is here treated on nearly the same plane as the sema floor. The ensemble of musicians, comprising six figures, includes a kudümzen, a neyzen, and a tamburi. On the wall immediately behind the ensemble, the inscription 'Yâ Hazreti Mevlâna' is visible.

In the sema floor, lit by small hanging oil lamps and bounded by gallery railings that appear only as silhouettes, seven dervishes and a Mevlevi şeyh are depicted. Departing from the customary colour scheme, the dervishes are shown wearing grey sikkes, white tennures, and sashes in black and grey tones. Five of the figures whirl with arms outstretched, while one stands in waiting to receive permission from the şeyh; a third, positioned at the centre, is shown in the act of bowing before the şeyh to receive his leave.

Rather than rendering the ritual structure of the Mevlevi ceremony in precise detail, Dereli foregrounds the movement and the spiritual mood that arise during the sema. The figures, defined through a painterly handling of tone and mark, convey the temporal flow of the ceremony and the state of ecstatic absorption through a concentrated visual language. This approach suggests that the artist engaged with the sema not as an observed scene but through the impression it left upon him.