EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE OF ORIENTALIST TURKISH WOMENS IMAGE IN ENGRAVINGS

Abstract

During pre-technological times, travelogues and their engravings have carried great importance for cultures to learn about each other. Additionally, engravings that also made by artists who visited the Ottoman lands have played significant role in the formation and change of the Ottoman image. When cultures recognize about each other, attitudes to women and the representation of the place of women in society undertake a role as mirror for the culture. However, due to social structure artists were not able to get the opportunity to observe women. Because of that, Orientalist view was effective about engravings. This situation has led to move Turkish women image to Europe via Orientalist view. Seeing that the western point of view was not objective, and the researches that made with eastern point of view did not reach enough numbers, the phenomenon has triggered. The researches which carried out about Turkish women image on the engravings that made by European artists are not enough. In this study, 25 engravings which selected by purposive sampling method were analyzed using content analysis method. The research has shown that in the first times the view of European artist about Ottoman Empire was contradictory and variable. Then, this case was changed and it was replaced by studies that includes a single type negative image. Some of those engravings were aimed only see and recognize a different culture. On the other hand, engravings that have exaggeration and Orientalist perspective are dominate Background: During pre-technological times, travelogues and their engravings have played important role for cultures to recognize each other. Due to their subjective character, it’s questionable to accept the engravings as a scientific source of material, still they are very important visual communication method, which passes through next generations. Starting from the 17th century, Europe and Ottoman relations gained different status and European artists traveling through Ottoman Empire depicted engravings to recognize different cultures they encountered. The engravings comprised many topics such as architecture, clothing, daily life and harem. Although, many engravings are based on real observations, the ones about women issues shows orientalist, ideological and prejudiced aspects. Women’s status and image in the different societies are important elements by identifying and assessing other cultures. These disinformative and prejudiced engravings of European Artists about women issues deeply shaped the Turkish image in Western culture in an inaccurate way. Although they are very influential, there are only a few studies with lack of proper research. Objective: Many other literatures are based on orientalist and prejudiced approach which shapes the current Turkish image. The objective of this study is to review European perspective of orientalist Turkish women’s image in engravings. Method: In this research, travelogues more than100 travelers visiting Ottoman Empires and their Turkish woman engravings are observed. Since it’s difficult to analyze Europe and Ottoman relations in all periods of time, Engravings from 17th, 18th, 19th centuries are studied. In 17th century the relation gains strong momentum with respect to previous centuries and increasingly continues in 18th 19th centuries. In this era many artist traveled and depicted engravings until the invention of photograph in 20th century. In this research 25 Turkish woman engravings from this era are reviewed and contend analyses method is applied. These 25 engravings are selected with purposive sampling method, since there are many works comprises similar contents. Result: The study “European perspective of orientalist Turkish women’s image in engravings” is divided into four sections namely, cloth and costume catalogues, Turkish woman in daily life, harem and novel women’s daily life, and finally hamam and baths. Cloth and costume catalogues are commonly used before 17th century. Clothing is important since it represents moral attitude, cultural property, social, economic and political status. Eight of the engravings in this review examine Turkish woman clothing in extravagant, aggressive, erotic, obedient way. Only two of the engravings does not include orientalist point of view, instead they only describe clothing style of Turkish women in objective way. Turkish women figure in daily life is depicted as servant, belly dancer or domestic. Daily life engravings are essential to get to know each other. In this review seven of the engravings examine Turkish woman daily life. In the engravings scenes are categorized in two main sections, namely daily life and harem. Although harem is also a part of the daily life it’s disguised from foreign eyes. This secret part of the daily life attracts the imagination of European artists. The main characteristic of this imagination is to be erotic, mystic, fantastic and appealing. Six of the engravings in this review examine Turkish novel women and harem. Although women in sultan’s harem have different ethnical origins they are all seen as Turkish. Women from all social classes in harem are shown as extravagant, hysterical and caged. Like harem, hamam- bath also triggered the imaginative illustrations of European artists. In this review four engravings about hamam and bath are examined, where Turkish woman is illustrated as a hysterical and erotic object, like seen in harem. It can be said, that only two of the engravings are based on objective perspective, and contains descriptive elements. Conclusion: Engravings of European Artists before 17th century shows an ambiguous and inconsistent picture of Ottoman culture and daily life. However, in 18th century, this approach started to change and negative monotypes takes places in almost all engravings. Only a few of the works adopted an objective approach to describe and understand the culture. The studied engraving strongly influenced other work of arts, such

Özet

Henüz teknolojinin gelişmediği dönemlerde, seyahatnameler ve içlerinde yer alan gravürler, toplumların birbirlerini tanımaları açısından büyük önem taşımaktaydı. Osmanlı topraklarını ziyaret eden Avrupalı sanatçıların da yaptıkları gravürler, Avrupa'daki Osmanlı imajının oluşmasında ve değişiminde büyük rol oynamıştır. Kültürlerin birbirlerini tanımasında kadınlara olan bakış ve kadınların toplumdaki yerinin temsili o kültürün aynası görevini üstlenmektedir. Ancak toplumsal yapıdan dolayı sanatçılar kadınları gözlemleme olanağını elde edememişlerdir. Bu durum oryantalist bakışın gravürler üzerine etkili olmasına ve Türk kadının imajının bu bakışla Avrupa'ya taşınmasına neden olmuştur. Batı bakışının objektif olmaması ve Doğu bakışındaki araştırmaların yeterli sayıda olmaması bu durumu tetiklemektedir. Gravürlerin öneminin kavranmasına ve gravürlerde yer alan kadınların Avrupa'daki Türk imajı üzerindeki rolünün öneminin anlaşılmasına rağmen Avrupalı sanatçıların yapmış olduğu gravürlerde gösterilen Türk kadını imajıyla ilgili gerçekleştirilen çalışmalar yetersizdir. Bu öneminin anlaşılmasıyla yapılan araştırma, 17. 18. ve 19. yüzyıldaki Avrupalı sanatçıların gözüyle gravürlerde, oryantalist Türk kadını imajı üzerine yapılmıştır. Yapılan araştırmada amaca yönelik örneklem yöntemiyle seçilen 25 adet gravür, içerik analizi yöntemi kullanılarak incelenmiştir. Araştırma göstermiştir ki Avrupalı sanatçıların Osmanlı'ya olan bakışı başlangıçta çelişkili ve değişkenken bu durum değişime uğrayarak, tek tip olumsuz imgelerin yer aldığı çalışmalara yerini bırakmıştır. Gravürlerin bazıları farklı bir kültürü tanıma ve sadece görüntüleme amacını güderken diğer taraftan abartının ve oryantalist bakış açısının sergilendiği çalışmalar ağırlıktadır