Painting, artistic patronage and criticism in the public sphere: a study of the Ottoman society of painters, 1909-1918

Abstract

This study examines the Ottoman Society of Painters, and traces the history of its first nine years, from its foundation in 1909 until the demise of the Empire in 1918. The position of the Ottoman Society of Painters in the late-Ottoman cultural milieu was certainly a significant one. As an artistic organization, run by the graduates and students of the Academy of Fine Arts, it published the first art journal of the Empire, and contributed to the painting exhibitions organized in Istanbul and in Vienna during the First World War. The final decade of the Ottoman Empire was indeed a unique decade, and it is the objective of this study to understand the Society and their art as part of these "catastrophic" years; the years that witnessed revolutions, rebellions, nationalistic agendas, wars and massacres. This thesis firstly explores the historical and artistic specifics that lead to the foundation of the Society, and then, focuses on the key themes and debates of its journal, in an attempt to understand how contemporary political circumstances, such as the Balkan Wars and the nationalist agenda of the CUP, influenced the fabric of the Journal itself. The last chapter looks at Ottoman visual culture during World War I and explores the responses of the Society's painters to this disastrous war and its extraordinary conditions.