National Art Education Association

Art Treasures of Turkey Author(s): Burton Wasserman Reviewed work(s): Source: Art Education, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Jan., 1967), pp. 15-19 Published by: National Art Education Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3190941 . Accessed: 30/03/2012 09:09
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TREASURES OF TURKE

WASSERMAN BURTON of A Visit the Art Treasures Turkey exhibition. richnessof in this generation.Severalof the Romanportrait heads in visual experienceawaits you. It's altogetherdifferentfrom the collectionwere recentdiscoveriesin archaeological digs A of 29, anythingelse in the worldof art. & UntilJanuary the at Sardisand Aphrodisias. bronzeportrait the Emperor of show may be seen in Houston, Texasat The Museum Fine Trajan dates fromthe rich and relatively peacefulperiodof will Arts.Afterward, during1967, the exhibition moveon to the second centuryA.D. when the region was part of the the Nelson Galleryof Art in KansasCity;the Seattle Art Roman Empire. When, in the early fourth century, t in Museum San Francisco; Emperor the establishedhis "second" Romeon the Constantine Museum; de YoungMemorial of the Milwaukee Center;and the Museum FineArts in Bosphorus Constantinople Art and becamethe easterncenterof Museum Christianity, area's art began to show an increasingly Boston.The show is scheduledfor the Metropolitan the of Art in New YorkCityduringthe early partof 1968. The mixedOriental-Christian influence.An early Byzantine work exhibition being circulatedby the Smithsonian is Institution in the exhibition,a marble portraitof Emperor Arcadius, Exhibition Servicefollowingits initialpresentation indicates the growing stylizationof forms, while a sixth Traveling All centurysilver dish shows two extremes-Hellenisticfigures D.C. at the NationalGalleryof Art in Washington, field. Inthe eleventh two-dimensional togethersome 286 objects-stone, bronze,gold,silver,ivory, set in a Byzantine and who Turks carpets,silks, armor, illuminated porcelain, manuscripts century,the regionwas conquered the Seldjuk by -are on view. Also includedare classical statuary,jewel- broughttheir arabesquemotifsand calligraphic renderings encrustedbelts and daggers,an 8,000 yearold mirror, and of verses from the Koran.Rug making,an art in which delicate jewelrywornin Troy1,000 years beforethe Trojan Turkishcraftsmenexcelled perhapsabove all others, was War. 6 There are bronze grave offeringsdating back to imported in fromthe Eastand is represented the exhibition idolsfromthe sixthto the thirdmillennia by rare examplesdatingfromthe thirteenth fourteenth and 2,400 B.C.,fertility B.C.and a number recentdiscoveries of fromthe Greek and centuries. 0 Brightlydecorated robes of silk, jewel-enRomanperiodsof the landknown and and once as Anatolia. The crustedweaponsand books,armor mirrors, delicate worldof the Ottoman momentsof Turkish underthe inlaidchests are fromthe sumptuous great early historyhappened Hittitesof the second millennium whoruledfromthe thirteenth the twentieth to B.C.,who also left a deep Turks century. artisticimprint. vessels and massive Many of these objects are lent by the famed Topkapi Animal-shaped drinking stone sculpturesof the gods, some weighingas muchas a Museum, treasurehouseof the sultans'splendor.% Pera ton, show the advancedstate of art duringthe time of the haps the greatestneed of this dayandage is for the peoples Hittites.4 In the next ten centuries the area was con- of the earth to understand and each other morethoroughly Whatbetter way to do this than by as queredand reconquered the Phrygians, Persians, more sympathetically. Lydians, Greeks,and Romansenjoyed the land's riches. Each tri- travelingthe bridges between the continentsprovidedby of civilization hiddentreasures-amongthem two the arts?Perhapsa good step in the direction the Orient left umphant bronzestatues fromthe GoldenlonianAge whichwere dis- might well be taken via the Near East. The Art Treasures coveredin Turkey's coastalwatersjust in timeto be included of Turkey certainlyoffers such a step-and a most inviting in the exhibition. Thereis also an exceptionally life-size one it is. & BurtonWassermanis a professorof art at fine NewJersey. marblestatueof a youngGreek athletewhichwas recovered Glassboro StateCollegein Glassboro,
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FACING ABOVE: bronzecauldronon ringstand, Altintepe,eighth centuryB.C.FACING BELOW: PAGE, PAGE, painted bowl, Hacilar, Chalcolithic, fifth mil. B.C.; gold medallion, Galatian,circa 278-189 B.C.; basalt high relief, Marash,eighth century B.C.;jade mirrorwith gold inlayand jewels, Ottoman,sixteenth-seventeenth century. THIS PAGE:flat-rimmedfaience dish, Isnik, Ottoman, late fifteenth century. (Reproduction of high relief courtesy the NationalGalleryof Art; other works courtesy the Smithsonian Institution.)

ABOVE: goblet, Troy,circa 2300 B.C.;FACING FACING bronzestatue of a Negro BELOW: PAGE, PAGE, clay boy, Bodrum,late Hellenistic, second to first century B.C.;dagger of rockcrystaland gold with jewels, Ottoman, sixteenth century;gold earring,Troy,circa 2300 B.C.;paintedcrater,Gordion,late eighth centuryB.C. THISPAGE: faience mosque lamp, isnik, Ottoman,late fifteenth or early sixteenth century. (Reproduction of statue and dagger courtesy the National Gallery;other works courtesy the Smithsonian Institution.)

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