ISTANBUL IN MINIATURE
The art of miniature is still being practised by
a modern artist, Nusret Çolpan, who combines its traditional
role as an informative illustration with contemporary concepts of
art. His subject is Istanbul, that city which has been a source
of inspiration for poetry, songs and paintings over the centuries.
Nusret Çolpan is an Istanbul enthusiast who declares, ‘Istanbul
is such a treasure store that everyone can find anything they seek
in its diversity and beauty.’ The various periods of the city’s
history, the winding Bosphorus strait, green woods, ships, mansions,
pavilions, palaces, mosques; in short, all the images and visions
of Istanbul past and present are to be seen in Çolpan’s
miniatures.
Çolpan takes as his starting point the feature
which distinguishes traditional Ottoman Turkish miniatures from
those of other countries, which is its realism and portrayal of
actual scenes, so rendering these paintings documents of considerable
historical significance. ‘I have painted around three hundred
modern miniatures so far,’ he explains.
‘They depict different parts of Istanbul,
such as Topkapi Palace, Süleymaniye Mosque, Eminönü,
Galata, the Bosphorus, the Maiden’s Tower, the Golden Horn
and Üsküdar, sometimes as they were in past centuries
and sometimes as they are today, when they seem to prove that they
are still beautiful.’
These miniatures carry you on a journey through
time. Bobbing on waves of vivid blue and turquoise might be galleons
or ferryboats. Sometimes time is suspended. You find yourself in
Haghia Sophia at night. Minarets and dome stretch upwards in that
cold, dark blue winter night, and the snow flakes falling on them
look like stars floating down from the sky. The exuberant Bosphorus
with its timeless beauty links you to the life of past and present.
The influence of the great 17th century miniaturist
Matrakçi Nasuh and his own training as an architect combine
to make Çolpan focus particularly on the city and its buildings.
The rich idiom of miniature, its conceptual symbolism,
the way it allows the artist to conjoin both bird’s eye and
frontal views, to remove the roof of a building to reveal the interior,
and to gather together in one composition events and objects historically
disparate are the reasons why he has chosen this genre. Çolpan
explains that as an illustrative art of the book, Ottoman miniature
sought to capture the maximum amount of detail without regard for
perspective.
Today, however, he says, ‘miniature is no
longer confined to books, but has been transformed into an art in
its own right, whose visual dimension, graphic quality, and colour
harmony and palette are striking.’ Taking advantage of the
artistic licence permitted by miniature, an Istanbul deliberately
stripped of all its undesirable aspects and revealed in its immaculate
beauty. We realise once more just how passionately fond we are of
this mysterious and spectacular city.
In a miniature showing fisherm’sre nets at
Anadolu Hisari, sea meeting shore in a conjunction of vivid blues
and greens, there are neither traffic jams nor ugly modern buildings.
Nusret Çolpan only draws what he wants to see. He focuses
on the lyrical side of Istanbul, using abstraction and sometimes
surrealist elements.
Çolpan employs traditional techniques for
his modern miniatures of Istanbul which emphasise the city’s
relationship with water. He cannot imagine Istanbul without the
sea, and the views of water in his paintings are soothing to the
human spirit. The miniature genre is particularly appropriate for
representing the plays of colour on the sea, whose constant movement
is enchanting. Rolling, foaming waves sometimes fill most of the
painting, and sometimes caress a galleon, a royal barge, or a weary
merchant ship. The main background is very important says Çolpan,
pointing to the sea.
Nusret Çolpan has been working in Istanbul
for twenty years. Most of his paintings are in foreign collections.
He hopes that new generations will appreciate the miniatures whose
colours and sensibility are adapted to the perception of tody’s
viewers, and open new doors for an art form which has so much potential.
* Gün Gürpinar Civa is a writer
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