86 that is behind this incident not with his Tatar woman, he immediately blinded the
master artist. MNR, 70 Enishte Effendi and Sultan Murad III see the Italian Renaissance painting
as a painting technique, which is greater, modern, and interesting than the Islamic Ottoman painting tradition. Sultan Murad, himself, even asks his miniaturists to
study this painting technique as well as commissions a secret book, which adopts the Italian painting style. This commissioned book shows that the East imitates
and adopts Western painting style in order to modernize itself and also to show its power and superiority to the West. Along with Said’s discourse on Orientalism,
this constructed opposition demonstrates the difference between the Islamic Ottoman painting that is characterized as the old painting tradition and the
Frankish painting that is signified as the new and modern painting tradition. At last, through the imitation of this painting style, the East has indicated Europe’s
identity as superior.
3. Maintenance and Preservation of Eastern Aspects
where there is power there is resistance —Michel Foucault
224
After the Frankish painting “invades” the Ottoman painting, the old painting tradition is being replaced by the new painting style. The miniaturists
also challenge the Islamic prohibition, which prohibits the figuration of the living
224
Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality Histoire de la Sexualité translated by Robert Hurley, Volume 1 New York: Pantheon, 1978.
87 and non-living being, by adapting and imitating the Western ways of seeing and
painting in their works. Frankish painting, as explained in the previous part, is not only as a seduction but also as a threat for the Islamic miniature painting. In fact,
the beauty of the Italian Renaissance painting enchants not all the miniature painters. This threat, in addition, has prompted Master Osman to take action to
preserve this painting tradition. It is along with the quotation above that Master Osman, the head of the illuminators, struggles to maintain and preserve the old
painting tradition and resist the power and “invasion” of the modern painting style. Moreover, the Preacher Nusret Hoja of Erzurum and his followers also try
to protect and maintain the path of their prophet by giving punishment those who turn from the path of Exalted Muhammad.
Orhan Pamuk, in his essay, mentions that “My Name is Red is about the fear of being forgotten, the fear of art being lost, about the sorrow and tragedy of
this loss, this erasure”.
225
I argue that Master Osman, as the protector of the old tradition feels “the fear, the sorrow, and the pain of the lost tradition”,
226
of the Ottoman miniature painting. When Master Osman and Black are searching for the
murderer in the Inner Treasury of Topkapi Palace by scanning the illustration of a horse on the “old illuminated manuscript, Master Osman sinks his face with
sorrow into the wondrous artwork because nobody could paint this way anymore” MNR, 328. Enishte Effendi also emphasizes the loss of the old tradition that “in
the end, our method will die out. No one will care about our books, and our
225
Pamuk, Other Colours, 269-270.
226
Pamuk, Other Colours, 270.
88 paintings. …Moreover, indifference, time, and disaster will destroy our art.”
MNR, 187 As the head of the illuminators, Master Osman has a “duty to protect his
master illustrators from their enemies, since nowadays, the value is placed not on the painting but on the money one can earn from it, not on the old masters but on
imitators of the Franks”. MNR, 360 This value changed as the miniaturists begin to paint in imitation of the Frankish and Venetian masters, as in the book Our
Sultan had commissioned from Enishte, the domain of meaning ends and the domain of form begins. MNR, 343 As the protector of the old tradition, Master
Osman will also do anything in order to defend the Ottoman miniature painting and its guild from the Frankish influence, just as what Black says that:
to preserve the old style and the regimen of the miniaturists’ workshop, to rid himself from Enishte’s book, and to become again the Sultan’s only
favourite, he would gladly surrender any one of his master miniaturists, and Black as well, to the tortures of the Commander of the Imperial Guard.
MNR, 362 My Name is Red can be read as a story about sight and blindness.
227
In Turkish miniature painting tradition, there is a concept on blindness and memory
that painting is from memory the artists had as “the act of seeking Allah’s memories and seeing the world as he sees the world” MNR, 88.
Through our colours, paints, art, and love, we remember that Allah had commanded us to “See” To know is to remember that you’ve seen. To see
is to know without remembering. Thus, painting is remembering the blackness. …Artists without memory neither remember Allah nor his
blackness. MNR, 84
227
Çiçekoglu, “Difference, Visual Narration”, 130.
89 Blindness is the crowning reward bestowed by Allah upon the illuminator who
has devoted an entire life to His glories. It is because illustrating is the miniaturist’s search for Allah’s vision of the earthly realm. Besides, a blind
miniaturist sees the world as Allah sees it through the darkness of memory and blindness. MNR, 88 The old masters of Shiraz and Herat add that a true
miniaturist will depict Allah’s envision in his works and will go blind after working over than fifty-year period. However, in the process, he will paint from
memory he has. MNR, 22 Master Osman, the representative of Eastern tradition, chooses to blind
himself using the needle that Master Bihzad had used to blind himself in the Treasury. MNR, 348
I looked at the needle for a long time. I tried to imagine how Bihzad could’ve done it. I’d heard that one doesn’t go blind immediately. …I sat
down again and gazed at my own eyes. How beautifully the flame of the candle danced in my pupils—which had witnessed my hand paint for sixty
years. …Without hesitation…I bravely, calmly and firmly pressed the needle into the pupil of my right eye. … I pushed the needle into my eye to
the depth of a quarter the length of a finger, then removed it. …Smiling, I did the same to my other eye. MNR, 349
Master Osman, the head of the Ottoman miniaturist, uses blindness as a “tactic” to resist Renaissance painting’s supremacy, which dominates Turkish miniature
painting and its imperial painters. Osman’s decision to honourably blind himself is a rejection to the adoption and imitation of Renaissance painting style, “so that
nobody would force him to paint in another way”, MNR, 420 even Sultan himself. His self-blinded—which is also mimicry toward Master Bihzad—is
conducted “after Master Osman understood that Our Sultan wanted to have His
90 own portrait made in the style of the European masters and that all the
miniaturists…had betrayed him”. MNR, 420 Nakkas
228
Osman’s self-blinded is an adoption from Bhabha’s mimicry yet his mimicry is rather different to Bhabha’s. Bhabha’s concept on mimicry is seen
as an effective strategy of resistance by making imitation of the oppressor to make a confrontation and also to assert his own dominance.
229
Mimicry is also used to illustrate the processes of imitation or to borrow the various cultural elements.
230
However, Osman imitates Bihzad—the great master of Herat who maintains the old painting tradition—by blinding himself. By imitating Master Bihzad in
blinding himself, Master Osman has showed his resistance toward the domination of Western painting style and especially toward the Sultan’s control. Similar to
Lacan’s concept on mimicry, I indicate that Master Osman’s mimicry is a camouflage and a way to survive from the colonizer, who is the Sultan himself.
Bhabha proposes the concept of mimicry as evidence that the oppressed Master Osman will not only keep silent because they also have power to fight for the
domination of the oppressor. Blindness is also the symbol of honour for the great master of miniaturists.
When they are forced to change their technique, “talent, colours, and methods” MNR, 351 and “adopt the styles of victors and imitate their miniaturists, they
preserve their honour by using a needle to heroically bring on the blindness” MNR, 352. Moreover, the great master Jemalettin, “like all genuine virtuosos,
had in any case been awaiting blindness as though it were Allah’s blessing. …He
228
Nakkas means miniaturist in Turkish. Çiçekoglu, “Difference, Visual Narration”. 131.
229
Bhabha, Location of Culture, 85.
230
Bhabha, Location of Culture, 90.
91 also maintained that the memory of a miniaturist was located in…the intellect and
the heart.” MNR, 309 Elegant Effendi, who is bound to Eastern tradition, dies because he tries to
stop the domination of the Western style. In the opening chapter, the dead miniaturist, who speaks in the bottom of the well, hears from the Erzurum
preacher that the book he is working on contains blasphemy. My death conceals an appalling conspiracy against our religion, our
traditions, and the way we see the world. Open your eyes, discover why the enemies of the life in which you believe, of the life you’re living, and
of Islam, have destroyed me. Learn why one day they might do the same to you. One by one, everything predicted by the great preacher Nusret Hoja
of Erzurum, to whom I’ve tearfully listened, is coming to pass. MNR, 5 The contradiction on the different way of seeing in the Islamic miniature tradition
and the Italian Renaissance, which is mainly illustrated in My Name is Red, has triggered the chain of murders conducted by Velijan, one of the finest miniaturists
in the guild. Velijan does not only desire but also eschew the Italian painting. Black
also emphasizes that “it was Olive who showed the most enthusiasm for and the most ease with the styles of the Frankish masters admired by his late Enishte.”
MNR, 279 As Master Osman’s miniaturist, Olive also tries to preserve the Muslim painting by murdering Elegant Effendi and Enishte Effendi. As Olive
mentions that, “This deed,”…”I committed this deed not only for us, to save us, but for
the salvation of the entire workshop.” MNR, 426 “…I thereupon confessed that I was the one who killed Elegant Effendi
and tossed him into a well.” MNR, 427
92 Olive’s confession above shows that he kills both Elegant and Enishte because he
wants to save the miniaturists and also the workshop itself. The imitation of the Italian painting is not the only problem face by the
Ottoman at that time. The existence of coffee house and the other social problems in İstanbul has driven the Preacher Nusret Hoja of Erzurum and his followers to
protect and maintain the path of their prophet. The henchmen of Preacher Nusret Hoja, that represent the religious conservative in present-day Turkey, “they intend
to clean up all the dens of wine, prostitution, and coffee in İstanbul and punish severely those who veered from the path of Exalted Muhammad. …They railed
against the enemies of religion, men who collaborated with the Devil, pagans, unbelievers, and illustrators” MNR, 379. Moreover, a dog, one of the non-human
narrators in My Name is Red, tells that a cleric called Husret Hoja also tries to ban the drinking of coffee in İstanbul.
Coffee becomes very popular in İstanbul when it was first brought in the mid of the 16
th
century.
231
Peçevi, quoted by Boyar and Fleet, states that it was Hakem from Aleppo and Şems from Damascus who first built a coffee shop. He
emphasizes that “coffee house became so famous that apart from government officials, even important people began to come and even imams, muezzins, blue-
robed religious figures, and ordinary people became addicted to the coffee house.”
232
This great popularity of coffee worries the religious leader because “coffee took up so much people’s time that people found they had no time left to
231
Boyar and Fleet, Social History, 190.
232
Peçevi, Tarihi I, 196. Quoted from Boyar and Fleet, Social History, 190.
93 pray”
233
and “nobody went anymore to the mosque.”
234
It is along with Esther’s statement that coffee “dulls the intellect and causes men to lose their faith” MNR,
379. The boneheaded cleric indicates that “the drinking of coffee is an absolute
sin…and nothing but the Devil’s ruse” MNR, 13. Coffee houses, moreover, the place where people meeting, chattering, gossiping, and much more alarmingly for
the government, complaining,
235
ought to be banned because it is a place of evil. Husret Hoja tells to his believers that “Our Glorious Prophet did not partake of
coffee because it dulled the intellect, caused ulcers, hernia, and sterility” MNR, 13. He also states that coffee houses are the Devil places. They are “places where
pleasure-seekers and wealthy gadabouts sit knee to knee, involving themselves in all sorts of vulgar behavior” MNR, 13. The other cleric from Erzurum adds that
“scoundrels and rebels were also gathering in coffee house and proselytizing until dawn” MNR, 10. Still from Peçevi, that it is not only the religious leader who is
committed to clean coffee in İstanbul but Sultan Murad III also starts to give warnings about the problems of coffee. However, nobody performs Sultan’s
command to go to the coffee house.
236
Coffee house is a space where the storyteller and painters speak freely to the problems facing their art and their society at a time of cultural transition. This
is the place where the Persian miniaturists who are suddenly introduced to ideas from European Renaissance are starting to question principles of Islamic cultural
233
Peçevi, Tarihi I, 198. Quoted from Boyar and Fleet, Social History, 190.
234
Peçevi, Tarihi I, 196. Quoted from Boyar and Fleet, Social History, 190.
235
Boyar and Fleet, Social History, 194.
236
Peçevi, Tarihi I, 196. Quoted from Boyar and Fleet, Social History, 190.
94 production.
237
In the coffee house, the storyteller also performs the single-leaf paintings that exist in the secret book. The activities that are indicated dangerous
and threatened the Islamic teaching have infuriated the Preacher Nusret Hoja. The Erzurumis, they raid the coffee house and give severe punishment by slaying the
miniaturists as well as the storyteller. Butterfly sees how the mob mercilessly beaten the coffee house-goers as they try to leave and find the body of the master
storyteller MNR, 385. The imitation of the Italian Renaissance painting, by the Islamic palace
illuminators, has driven Master Osman to blind himself. Moreover, the existence of coffee has driven the Preacher Nusret Hoja and his follower to punish the
miniaturists and the storyteller by raiding the coffee house. In this same vein, the imitation of Western technology by Hoja also gets refusal from the Ottoman
society, the army, and the Grand Vizier. Many people curse Hoja’s grand plan and accuse it as the carrier of the bad luck. People call it as:
”freak, insect, satan, turtle archer, walking tower, iron heap, red rooster, kettle on wheels, giant, cyclops, monster, swine, gypsy, blue-eyed weirdie,
which took to the road very slowly with a bizarre uproar of frightening screeches and groans, striking all who saw it with exactly the terror that
Hoja intended.” TWC, 126 The army also does not accept the weapon. They do not want to march into battle
alongside this heap of wrought iron and do not expect anything useful from this gigantic kettle. Worse, they believe it is an ill omen and it could just as easily
bring a curse as a victory. TWC, 129 It is not only the army that does not like the
237
Ali and Hagood, “Heteroglossic Sprees”, 511.
95 existence of the war machine but so does the pashas, who wanted to be rid of Hoja
and his slave. When Hoja started up his patter…and spoke of the indispensability of the
weapon, the pashas listening to him in the sovereign’s tent were even more firmly convinced that we were charlatans and our weapon would bring bad
luck. TWC, 138 He spent the evening arguing with the pashas…who said the weapon was sapping
the strength of the army as well as bringing bad luck. TWC, 139
4. Personal Search for Identity as Individual