OSMAN HAMDİ BEY BEYOND VISION

Marie Palyart, Osman Hamdi Bey’s second wife acquired the name Naile after her marriage. Very little is known about her other than that she was born in France in 1863 and that her mother Germaine Palyart also lived in Istanbul. Osman Hamdi Bey and Naile Hanım had three children, namely Leyla (1880-1950), Edhem (1882-1957) and Nazlı (1893-1958). She continued to live in Istanbul after her husband’s death in 1910, went to live in Paris with her daughter Nazlı in 1930s, returned to Istanbul with the outbreak of World War II and died on 21 September 1943.

Osman Hamdi Bey has frequently painted portraits of family members. The most common of these are those of Naile Hanım. The outlines of these paintings depicting her from the right or left profile, from the front or back, in different attire and at different ages are similar. 'The Portrait of Naile Hanım' at the Sakıp Sabancı Museum Collection is distinguished by the gold paint used around the figure. The figure is portrayed from the left profile and the energetic brushstrokes on her attire and black headcover contrast with the immobile expression on her face.

The gold color around the portrait has always been related to holy personalities in Islamic art, Europe of the Middle Ages, early Renaissance and even as far back as Ancient Egypt. Osman Hamdi Bey who is among the first Turkish artists to depict women on canvas paintings used the gold background applied in Byzantine icons to stress the divinity of the figure in her wife Naile Hanım’s portrait.

The artist has depicted old Despina with her gray hair partly covered by a black scarf tightly wound around her head and with its laced end hanging, her blouse of which three buttons are visible and her jacket with a fur collar. Her face has a deep expression reflecting all traces of time.

One of Osman Hamdi Bey’s techniques involved using photographs as models. There are a few portrait photographs of his wife Naile, which were clearly taken for this purpose. He also used his or his model’s photographs taken in the attire required for the figures in his paintings. We also know that the Ottoman and Islamic architectural structures and their details frequently seen in Osman Hamdi Bey’s canvases were painted on the basis of photographs. We do not know whether 'Kokona Despina' was painted with the same technique, but the detailed depiction of this plain painting suggests that this might have been the case.

Osman Hamdi Bey has painted portraits as well as his characteristic orientalist pictures. Most of these are portraits of his family members or people close to him. The artist has added the name of the portrait’s owner and where it was painted (Eskihisar) to the upper left corner of this painting which bears the artist’s signature and the date 1906.

During those years Moslems called Christian women “kokona” and Despina was a maid at Osman Hamdi Bey’s residence. The artist’s photographs and the date and place information he wrote on his canvases indicate that he frequently resided at the Eskihisar village of Gebze from 1890s on. This house is now open to public as Osman Hamdi Bey House and Museum. The artist’s studio where he painted is in the garden of the house surrounded with roses. His body also lies in the cemetery just behind the same house, in accordance with his will.

Like many of his later paintings, Osman Hamdi Bey depicted the interior of a religious building in his 'Hodja Reading the Koran'. The interior of Bursa’s Yeşil Cami (Green Mosque) is shown with glass oil lamps, Koran cases and calligraphic panels, among which is a male figure clad in a yellow gown and headgear sitting at his lectern at the mosque’s left lodge.

On the marble balustrade separating the lodge hang three oil lamps, one brass and of Mamluk origin, two glass and of Venetian make. On the side table right behind the hodja is a case made of mother-of-pearl, tortoise shell and wood. On the lower shelf of the side table and on the floor there are books scattered, three of which have inscriptions in Ottoman script on their back. These inscriptions bringing to mind Osman Hamdi Bey’s secret signatures are among the half completed elements of this unfinished painting.

The painting which shows the interior of Ottoman mosques decorated with tiles also provides us examples of the use of calligraphy in architecture. The calligraphic panel hanging over the 'sülüs' and 'kûfî' calligraphy belt running midst the tiles covering the walls bear witness to Islamic art’s calligraphy.

The calligraphic panel in question is an element that can be seen in the artist’s other paintings as well, and one of these is in the Sakıp Sabancı Museum Collection.

In the depicted panel, the Arabic expressions meaning ‘He is compassionate and forgiving’ in black ink and ‘I seek refuge in God’s mercy’ in yellow ink are interlinked. Under the panel, on the mosque’s tile belt is an inscription meaning ‘if the mountains and the sky were torn apart.

This is one of Osman Hamdi Bey’s unsigned and undated paintings. The outer wall of an old Ottoman building, its window with a pediment of tiles and geometric decorations with iron lattice, a shade fixed to the lattice and wall, and two women dictating a letter to the petitioner sitting under the shade are depicted. The panel in the painting which is not in place today is shown in Léon Parvillée’s book 'Architecture et Décoration Turques' (1874).

It is a piece from the outer window pediment of Prince Mustafa’s Tomb within the Muradiye complex in Bursa. Clearly, Osman Hamdi Bey knew the building in Bursa well and had Parvillée’s book in his library. Tile is a decorative element Osman Hamdi Bey frequently used especially in his later paintings. There are samples of Iznik tiles in some of his paintings and borders decorated with flowers or tiles decorated with calligraphy in others. Tiles can also be seen in the decorations of the religious buildings he has depicted.

Most of the women Osman Hamdi Bey frequently depicted belong to the higher income group as can be seen from their colorful and laced dresses which partly show their body contours reflecting the European fashion of the period. However, the two female figures in the 'Petitioner', one in blue and the other in black, are the ones closest to commoners compared to others in his paintings.

The petitioner after whom the painting is named is, as is frequently the case in Osman Hamdi Bey’s paintings, sitting on a Persian rug on a low wooden cot with thin legs, gazing at the sheet in his hand, with his writing box in front of him. He has a loose long-sleeved caftan over his yellow gown. There is a medal pattern ornamented with rather big flowers in the caftan’s fabric. The feet and gown of the petitioner are unfinished, like the 'Hodja Reading the Koran' painting. We also see two of the stray dogs frequently seen in the streets of the 19th century Istanbul, but very rarely in Osman Hamdi Bey’s paintings.

Osman Hamdi Bey’s 'Flowers in a Vase' painting which bears his signature and the date 1876 is his single known still life. The Chinese porcelain vase decorated with peony and peacock patterns sitting on a partly visible wooden table and with dry ears of grain constitutes the painting’s center.

To the right of the vase, there is a blue cap with a red tassel, standing against a stack of books on a piece of fabric partly hanging down the table. To the left of the vase there are a few ears of grain and a shallow copper vessel with a narrow beak of Mamluk origin.

A striking feature is the Uşak carpet hanging from upper left side of the painting. Depicting oriental carpets in paintings became popular in Europe in the 14th century. These paintings are a valuable source for Middle Eastern carpet researchers.

Osman Hamdi Bey also uses carpets frequently in his paintings. Although his use generally differs from European artists, the composition in the 'Flowers in a Vase' is similar to their paintings. Osman Hamdi Bey generally depicts carpets in his paintings of the interior and sometimes in compositions of outer spaces. There are not different carpet types in his paintings, the artist has always depicted the same group of carpets from his own collection. The carpet in this painting though, is not one of them and is not seen in any other of his paintings.

Osman Hamdi Bey has also painted a few landscapes, dated to 1870s. One of these is 'The Mosque'. A typical Eastern small street is surrounded on both sides by buildings whose façades with windows and bay windows are partly seen. In the background is a minaret under the blue sky and at the center are the shopkeepers and their customers. One of the figures on the street is a young woman in a yellow dress, sitting with her back to the mosque’s wall and with a pot full of the merchandise she is selling in front. The silver bracelets on her left wrist attract attention due to their luster achieved with the application of white paint.

Another salesman is sitting behind wooden shades in his shop. In the shaded part of the painting an old man is sitting on a stool and a woman on the ground. The profile of a black sherbet seller with a pannier on his back is half in the shadows. Osman Hamdi Bey returned to Istanbul from Paris in 1868 and was sent to Baghdad in 1869 as the Provincial Director of Foreign Affairs under Midhat Pasha where he would live for two years. His landscapes depict prominent buildings of Baghdad and it can be argued that 'The Mosque' also depicts a scenery from the same city.

The X-ray photographs show that the brushstrokes of the blue sky end towards the minaret with a flourish, indicating that the ground of the painting was added later whereas research on the artist’s other canvases has shown that he paints the ground first and adds other elements later.

X-ray analysis has revealed that the green-brown part at the bottom of the painting also bearing the artist’s signature was completely damaged in the past. The fact that the canvas was not destroyed indicates that the damage was caused by a flood which would harm only the paint rather than a fire or insect which would destroy the texture totally. The damaged part was restored before the painting was acquired by Sakıp Sabancı Museum. The patterns of the painting continue at the edges of the canvas, indicating that the original painting was larger and was later cut at the edges and put in a narrower casing.