English
Enrique Vila-Matas illustrates in one of his books a Chinese tale as told by Italo Calvino, about the very skilled artist Chuang Tzu, who was required by the emperor to draw a crab. Chuang Tzu took five years and a house with twelve servants as a necessary condition for the order. Apparently this was not sufficient, when he met the deadline he had not yet undertaken the task. Tzu Chang asked for another 1824 days, and they were granted. Then he drew the most perfect of crabs.
In a prose poem by José Angel Valente, the painter and the king are one person, Hui-Tsung, a Chinese emperor who paints “with the skill of an expert in the contemplation of nature,” a quail and a daffodil in the corners as neither a ” a bird or flower can be a center, they are merely a guide for the eye that looks to find the essence of a bird and flower inscribed”
With respect to Istanbul, we know thanks to Kemal Bey, a character in one of Orhan Pamuk´s novels, that during the fifties and sixties there was not a single museum where you could see pictures in Istanbul. Fans of painting used to make do with black and white photographs of birds, which they would meticulously illustrate and paint over or use them as models. The photographs could also be of other things, but birds became one of the favorite subjects in Istanbul. They applied their strokes slowly and patiently, with scrupulous attention to detail that, in the eyes of the author of this article, “has some connection to the Eastern painters of birds and crabs, perhaps relating to some secret connection made in the era of the Silk Road, when Turks had lived with the Chinese in Central Asia.”
Well, times have changed, as is shown by the Istanbul Dogançay Museum (Balo Sokak No: 42), which since 2004 has the honor of being the first modern art museum opened in the city. Located in a five floor building in the hip district of Beyo?lu, the museum is devoted almost entirely to the work of Burhan Dogançay, a leading contemporary artist. Don´t miss this fascinating space, which is a testimony to the passage of time, the walls of cities in over 100 countries visited, printing, paintings, tapestries, sculptures and photography, as documented by one of the best known and most important 20th century artists of Turkish origins.
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Paul Oilzum
When you rent apartments in Istanbul check out the Beyo?lu neighborhood, famous for its nightlife, and visit the Dogançay to see modern art.
