Modern Turkish Art

Modern Turkish Art

 

Abdulmecit Efendi (1868-1944) was the son of Abdulaziz II. During the time he was the Prince he carried out the honorary chairmanship of the Ottoman Artists’ Society (1909) and he protected the artists. His paintings of Beethoven, Goethe and Yavuz Sultan Selim were displayed at the Vienna Exhibition in 1918. In 1922, when the sultanate and the Calipate were separated, he undertook the duties of the caliph until 1924.

 

Most of the painters, beginning in 1914, made numerous adaptations of the Impressionist movement.  This can be called the beginning of modern Turkish painting. This 1914 generation of painters in the Impressionist movement were Ibrahim Calli(1882-1960), Hikmet Onat, Namik Ismail, Feyhaman Duran, Avni Lifij, Sami Yetik and Nazmi Ziya. All of them as students were sent to Europe to study painting. When the First World War broke out, they came back to Turkey. Ibrahim Calli, entered the Academy of Fine Arts in 1906. After which he made rapid progress. His success in the studios won him a scholarship to study in Paris under Fernand Cormon(1910-1914). Calli, painted a number of compositions in a new style, influenced by the diagrammatic and expressionist art forms.

 

All of the Calli group became teachers at the Academy of Fine Arts and trained the next generation of painters. They created an organisation called ‘the Association of Fine Arts ’. The Calli, group not only continued to paint during these First World War years, but also formed the first Arts Association, put out the first periodicals of art news and criticism, and exhibited in the galleries of Galatasaray, in the European quarter of the city (1916). This group made very important transitions in Turkish Painting.