Prussians and Turks – Artistic and cultural encounters over four centuries
26 Mar - 14 Jun 2009
PRUSSIANS AND TURKS – ARTISTIC AND CULTURAL ENCOUNTERS OVER FOUR CENTURIES
26 March to 14 June 2009
Organizer
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Museum of Islamic Art in cooperation with the Topkapi Sarayi Müzesi and the Dolmabahçe Palace
Curators Claus-Peter Haase, Filiz Çakir Phillip
Media partners rbb Inforadio, rbb Kulturradio, rbb Fernsehen
Prussia’s relations with the Ottoman Empire were considerably more peaceful than were those of the other European powers and marked by mutual sympathy. In many fields there was close cooperation between Germany and the Turkish Empire. Prussia had been invited since the early 19th century to advise on basic reforms of the Ottoman military establishment and of cultural institutions, such as museums, academies and universities. After all it was the Prussian-dominated German Empire which at the Congress of Berlin in 1878 had officially included the Ottoman Empire in the concert of European powers. Of their direct encounters there is a vivid visual record: two portraits of the Ottoman reform sultan Mahmud II, one in traditional dress, the other in a Prussian-style military tunic; Kaiser Wilhelm in Turkish military uniform; and photographs and film footage of the imperial visits to Istanbul and Palestine. The early legations tended to be kept sober in the Prussian manner, so that official gifts might even consist of Saxon or Bavarian products. But gradually the different tastes came to correspond: about 1800 a Prussian legation secretary bought artworks and manuscripts in Istanbul and brought the celebrated “Diez Albums” containing pictures and calligraphies of the 13th-16th centuries from the holdings of the Topkapi Saray to Berlin. In the Berlin exhibition these are confronted with magnificent examples of the parallel albums from the Topkapi Saray.
The main cultural encounter took place in the estimate of the earlier objets d’art, architecture and antiques on Turkish soil. In Anatolia German archaeologists retrieved Greek, Roman and Byzantine antiques. After the founding of the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul objects from German excavations came to Istanbul and Berlin, comparable examples of which are to be shown in the exhibition.
The unusual nature of the encounter between East and West as evinced in the European fad for turquoiseries and the Ottoman adoption of Baroque or Rococo styles is illustrated in fine examples of court and bourgeois culture – the playful reception of the Orient in this country in the 17th and 18th centuries was followed by the Romantic notions of the 19th century, which also became popular among German Orientalist painters. But there are also signs of cultural assertiveness in the Ottoman Empire as a defence against being swamped by foreign influences, while at other times a new symbiosis was achieved, composed of Moslem, Eastern Rite Christianity and western elements.
26 March to 14 June 2009
Organizer
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Museum of Islamic Art in cooperation with the Topkapi Sarayi Müzesi and the Dolmabahçe Palace
Curators Claus-Peter Haase, Filiz Çakir Phillip
Media partners rbb Inforadio, rbb Kulturradio, rbb Fernsehen
Prussia’s relations with the Ottoman Empire were considerably more peaceful than were those of the other European powers and marked by mutual sympathy. In many fields there was close cooperation between Germany and the Turkish Empire. Prussia had been invited since the early 19th century to advise on basic reforms of the Ottoman military establishment and of cultural institutions, such as museums, academies and universities. After all it was the Prussian-dominated German Empire which at the Congress of Berlin in 1878 had officially included the Ottoman Empire in the concert of European powers. Of their direct encounters there is a vivid visual record: two portraits of the Ottoman reform sultan Mahmud II, one in traditional dress, the other in a Prussian-style military tunic; Kaiser Wilhelm in Turkish military uniform; and photographs and film footage of the imperial visits to Istanbul and Palestine. The early legations tended to be kept sober in the Prussian manner, so that official gifts might even consist of Saxon or Bavarian products. But gradually the different tastes came to correspond: about 1800 a Prussian legation secretary bought artworks and manuscripts in Istanbul and brought the celebrated “Diez Albums” containing pictures and calligraphies of the 13th-16th centuries from the holdings of the Topkapi Saray to Berlin. In the Berlin exhibition these are confronted with magnificent examples of the parallel albums from the Topkapi Saray.
The main cultural encounter took place in the estimate of the earlier objets d’art, architecture and antiques on Turkish soil. In Anatolia German archaeologists retrieved Greek, Roman and Byzantine antiques. After the founding of the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul objects from German excavations came to Istanbul and Berlin, comparable examples of which are to be shown in the exhibition.
The unusual nature of the encounter between East and West as evinced in the European fad for turquoiseries and the Ottoman adoption of Baroque or Rococo styles is illustrated in fine examples of court and bourgeois culture – the playful reception of the Orient in this country in the 17th and 18th centuries was followed by the Romantic notions of the 19th century, which also became popular among German Orientalist painters. But there are also signs of cultural assertiveness in the Ottoman Empire as a defence against being swamped by foreign influences, while at other times a new symbiosis was achieved, composed of Moslem, Eastern Rite Christianity and western elements.