THE ARTISTIC INTERACTIONS BETWEEN TURKEY AND EUROPE IN TWENTIETH CENTURY

THE ARTISTIC INTERACTIONS

BETWEEN TURKEY AND EUROPE IN TWENTIETH

CENTURY

WESTERNIZATION MOVEMENTS• With the dissolution of the Ottoman

Empire and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, artists and politicians alike called for a new kind of art to represent the fledgling nation. Stylistically, the prose of the early years of the Republic of Turkey was essentially a continuation of the National Literature movement, with Realism and Naturalism predominating. 

VISUAL ARTS PAINTING• Young artists sent to Europe in 1926

came back inspired by contemporary trends such as Fauvism, Cubism and even Expressionism still very influencial in Europe.Some artists such as Nurullah Berk worked in a painterly mix of European and Turkish styles; others, like Cemal Tollu, took on the more abstract influences of Cubism and Constructivism.

Nurullah Berk - Cubist, Constructivist Painter Influenced by Spanish Painter, Sculptor, Printmaker, Ceramicist and Stage Designer Pablo Picasso

• Abidin Elderoğlu - Fauvist and Cubist Painter Influenced by French Sculptor and Painter André Lhote

• Agop Arad - Social Realist Painter Influenced by French Painter, Theorist, Writer, Critic and Poet Jean Metzinger

Ali Avni Çelebi - Expressionist Painter Influenced by German-born American Abstract Expressionist Painter and French Painter Léopold Lévy

Avni Arbaş – Influenced by French painter Léopold Lévy

Cevat Dereli – Impressionist Painter Influenced by French Artist Rodolphe Julian

Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu, Post-Impressionist Painter Influenced by Dutch Post-Impressionist Painter Van Gogh

Fikret Mualla – Expressionist Painter Influenced by French Artist Henri Matisse

Elif Naci - Impressionist Painter Influenced by Swiss Painter Paul Klee

Naile Akıncı - Impressionist Painter Influenced by French Painter Léopold Lévy

Hale Asaf - Impressionist and Expressionist Painter Influenced by German Painter and  Printmaker Lovis Corinth

Ferruh Başağa – Cubist Painter Influenced by French Artist Léopold Lévy

Selim Turan - Social Realist, Impressionist Painter and Sculptor Influenced by French Artist Leopold Levy

Nuri İyem, - Social Realist Painter Influenced by French Painter, Theorist, Writer, Critic and Poet Jean Metzinger

Turan Erol – Influenced by Spanish Painter and Printmaker Francisco Goya

Zeki Faik İzer - Cubist and Fauvist Painter Influenced by Italian Painter Tiziano Vecellio

Zeki Kocamemi – Cubist and Expressionist Painter Influenced by French Painter Robert Delaunay

Sabri Berkel - Symbolist Painter Influenced by Italian Painter Felice Carena

SCULPTURE• In this time, Europe continued to

inform the education and aesthetics of Turkish artists. Government grants allowed students to study abroad, and foreign artists were hired to teach in the Turkish academies. Sculpture was introduced at this time, and Rudolf Belling of Germany came to head the department at the Academy of Fine Arts in 1937.

Hüseyin Gezer – Turkish Sculptor Influenced by French Sculptor Marcel Gimond 

Ali Germaner – Turkish SculptorInfluenced by German Sculptor Rudolf Belling 

ARCHITECTURE• Architecture also took a page from

the European scene.The German urban planner Hermann Jansen won the competition for the Ankara's city plan in 1927.Austrian Clemens Holzmeister designed the new governmental center as a triangular complex with the Grand National Assembly at its apex

Soon after the influx of European architects and their integration into the education system, Turkey began to produce its own modernist architects. Reaction against the adoption of European modernism in architecture was allowed fuller expression after the death of Atatürk in 1938. 

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk-Leader of the Turkish Modernization

LITERATURE• Novel has entered to Turkish

Literature with the translations from French. First of these translations was Télémaque which had been done by Yusuf Kamil Paşa from Fenelon. Afterwards an anonymous translator translated “Les Misérables” of Victor Hugo.

Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar was a novelist who dramatize the clash between East and West in modern Turkish culture and societyNâzım Hikmet Ran was exposed to the modernist poetry of Vladimir Mayakovsky and others, which inspired him to start writing verse in a less formal style.

Nâzım Hikmet Ran (15 January 1902 – 3 June 1963),

• A transition from Islamic artistic traditions under the Ottoman Empire to a more secular, Western orientation has taken place in Turkey. Turkish painters today are striving to find their own art forms, free from Western influence.

PERFORMING ARTS

THEATRE

Ahmet Vefik Paşa adopted the works of Molière to Turkish. And then the most of Turkish Playrights adopted the French works which have been romantic.

The Darülbedayi was a theatre established in Istanbul in 1914. The Western Style TheatreInfluenced by French Theatre