Uluslararası İnsan ve Sanat Araştırmaları Dergisi
Yazarlar: Dilan ÇELIK, Eylem GÜZEL
Konular:Beşeri Bilimler, Ortak Disiplinler
Anahtar Kelimeler:Eugene Flandin,Engraving,Orientalism,Religious,Architecture
Özet: Unknown to the Western world and a constant source of curiosity, the Ottoman Empire has been a strong center of attraction for centuries with its vast geography. Westerners who wanted to get to know the Empire closely organized trips to this geography for various reasons in different periods. After the travels, Westerners visually documented and wrote down the places they visited and saw, as well as the events they witnessed. In the beginning, only diplomats, clergy and merchants could travel to this difficult geography, thanks to the technological opportunities that developed at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century; people from all walks of life were also able to travel. From this period, many trips were made to Ottoman geography. In parallel, there was an increase in the number of travelogues and engravings. The French Orientalist painter, Jean Baptise Eugéne Napoléon Flandin, commonly known as Eguéne Flandin, made two Great Eastern trips under the name of Iran and Mesopotamia due to diplomatic missions given by the French government. Among the many countries he visited during these trips, he was most interested in Turkey. He visited the territory of Turkey on three separate dates, which he found more mobile and colorful than other countries. Flandin, who had the opportunity to visit a large part of Anatolia, especially Istanbul, as a guest of the French Embassy, performed lithographs visualizing the unique beauty and values of the cities in his travelogue after the trip. These engravings, performed by Flandin, were compiled and published in 1853 and 1867 in the lithograph album called L'orient. The work, which consists of four volumes, includes images of Iran and Mesopotamia, as well as images of places he traveled on a trip to Turkey. In the first volume of the work, there are lithographs that the artist made during his trip to Turkey, belonging to the cities of Istanbul, Çanakkale and Izmir. In the second volume of the work, he focused more on the history of the Knights of Rhodes, painting his works in regions dominated by the Knights. These include etchings of countries such as France, Egypt, Turkey, especially Jerusalem. Only Bodrum Castle is considered in the part that is of interest to Turkey. In the third volume of the work, there are many engravings belonging to Middle Eastern countries such as Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, especially Iraq, where he traveled during his trip to Mesopotamia. In the part about Turkey, the artist covered the cities of Diyarbakir, Sanliurfa and Mardin. In the fourth volume of the work, which is about his journey to Iran, there are also paintings of Azerbaijan and Armenia, especially Turkey, where he traveled outside Iran. There are many lithographs of Sinop, Trabzon, Gümüşhane, Bayburt, Erzurum and Ağrı-Doğu Beyazıt in the section about Turkey. Among the city engravings in the work, which consists of four volumes, Islamic Religious Architecture is one of the most illustrated subjects. In this study, the etchings of Flandin will be examined from a documentary and stylistic point of view in the ways of addressing the structures of Islamic Religious Architecture located in the territory of modern Turkey. In the engravings, social complex, mosques and shrines are among the prominent structures that emphasize the Muslim identity of the cities. Flandin's signature engravings are very important in that they provide information on almost every subject of that period, as well as shed light on the images that differ today. In the light of these sources, it is extremely useful to reveal the original states of our cultural values that have disappeared or changed. On the other hand, part of the artist's work stands out for its pictorial values rather than documentary ones. The intensity of romantic and Orientalist art styles in engravings also makes it valuable to be studied from a pictorial point of view.