Depicting What the Eye Sees
20 Mar '09 19:281 editFor purposes of discussion ... an observation.
In reading the book My Name is Red, by the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, I have been given a rare insight into a key philosophical difference that may exist between Islam and the West that I believe lies at the heart of this work. The author is trying to show us something fundamental about different people from different cultures and religions at a pivotal period in history. He is showing us how they judged what was real. He was depicting a period when one culture departed from a traditional, authoritarian, view of reality and introduced the idea that what the individual could see also could be the basis of reality.
The book has much in it about the traditions, beliefs, and specific techniques that characterize the art of Islamic manuscript illustration from Mohammed's time up to 1590 thoughout the Muslim world, including the influence of the Chinese masters. Of great importance is the tradition of such art that had its origins in the city of Herat, the novel says.
The dramatic and philosophical plot point on which the entire work revolves is the consequence of the challenge presented by the radical advent of the Venetian, "Frankish," or European techniques of painting -- and the departure from primarily religious subjects into such forms as portraiture.
Once one has absorbed a great deal of the book, about halfway through it, a light seems to come on and one sees the problem the Islamic painters faced in considering what the Europeans were doing.
The challenge was complex, involving the introduction of perspective, the use of different values of the same color more accurately to depict natural light, and other techniques that went to the heart of what the Islamic masters considered dangerous, sacreligious innovations.
The Europeans had abandoned two-dimensional images of symbolic, religious import in favor of attempting, quite successfully with each passing year, to represent what the eye acutally could see.
The Islamic masters found this a profoundly disturbing departure because, to them, the purpose of their two-dimensional images where colors were used only in their pure, unshaded form, was to represent "what things are," not what things looked like.
For example, Pamuk uses a tree as a narrator for a chapter. The tree articulates its desire to not be a tree, but to “be its meaning” instead.
In other words, the Islamic masters thought capturing the likeness of an actual individual, like a photograph, led to idolatry.
Further, a major character, an older man named Enishte, explains that the “illustration comes at once to our aid” when “our intellect and imagination are at pains” to understand the meaning of a story. “Painting without its accompanying story is an impossibility,” he says, although Enishte was in fact engaged in a project he knew was contrary to this view. Enishte's acutal philosophy of painting changed after his second trip to Venice, where he encountered a painting that bewildered him. After studying the painting for some time, Enishte concluded, “the underlying tale was the picture itself. The painting wasn’t the extension of a story at all, it was something in its own right”
One gets from this book the impression the more traditional view was the mindset of all pious Muslims of the time: that what things looked like, or what actually happened, or what actually was written, was unimportant compared to the unshakeable truth of true beliefs as expressed by tradition and proper religious and temporal authority.
The attempt to depict reality led to mistaking the image for what was real, the Islamic masters feared. Reality was best illustrated by images handed down unchanged century upon century, and which gave primacy to what the books and manuscripts said reality was, not what one might see or hear for one's self.
Further, images were copied from year to year, master to master, because there could be no individual style or innovation. It is only God, or Allah, that brings into being that which did not exist before, who gives life to the lifeless. No painter could compete with Him.
"The greatest of sins is committed by painters who presume to do what He does, who claims to be as creative as He."
This implies an entirely different apprehension of reality from mine; in fact, its very opposite.
Pamuk won the Novel Prize for literature in 2006. Even in translation, he is undoubtedly a great, subtle, and vastly entertaining writer.
In reading the book My Name is Red, by the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, I have been given a rare insight into a key philosophical difference that may exist between Islam and the West that I believe lies at the heart of this work. The author is trying to show us something fundamental about different people from different cultures and religions at a pivotal period in history. He is showing us how they judged what was real. He was depicting a period when one culture departed from a traditional, authoritarian, view of reality and introduced the idea that what the individual could see also could be the basis of reality.
The book has much in it about the traditions, beliefs, and specific techniques that characterize the art of Islamic manuscript illustration from Mohammed's time up to 1590 thoughout the Muslim world, including the influence of the Chinese masters. Of great importance is the tradition of such art that had its origins in the city of Herat, the novel says.
The dramatic and philosophical plot point on which the entire work revolves is the consequence of the challenge presented by the radical advent of the Venetian, "Frankish," or European techniques of painting -- and the departure from primarily religious subjects into such forms as portraiture.
Once one has absorbed a great deal of the book, about halfway through it, a light seems to come on and one sees the problem the Islamic painters faced in considering what the Europeans were doing.
The challenge was complex, involving the introduction of perspective, the use of different values of the same color more accurately to depict natural light, and other techniques that went to the heart of what the Islamic masters considered dangerous, sacreligious innovations.
The Europeans had abandoned two-dimensional images of symbolic, religious import in favor of attempting, quite successfully with each passing year, to represent what the eye acutally could see.
The Islamic masters found this a profoundly disturbing departure because, to them, the purpose of their two-dimensional images where colors were used only in their pure, unshaded form, was to represent "what things are," not what things looked like.
For example, Pamuk uses a tree as a narrator for a chapter. The tree articulates its desire to not be a tree, but to “be its meaning” instead.
In other words, the Islamic masters thought capturing the likeness of an actual individual, like a photograph, led to idolatry.
Further, a major character, an older man named Enishte, explains that the “illustration comes at once to our aid” when “our intellect and imagination are at pains” to understand the meaning of a story. “Painting without its accompanying story is an impossibility,” he says, although Enishte was in fact engaged in a project he knew was contrary to this view. Enishte's acutal philosophy of painting changed after his second trip to Venice, where he encountered a painting that bewildered him. After studying the painting for some time, Enishte concluded, “the underlying tale was the picture itself. The painting wasn’t the extension of a story at all, it was something in its own right”
One gets from this book the impression the more traditional view was the mindset of all pious Muslims of the time: that what things looked like, or what actually happened, or what actually was written, was unimportant compared to the unshakeable truth of true beliefs as expressed by tradition and proper religious and temporal authority.
The attempt to depict reality led to mistaking the image for what was real, the Islamic masters feared. Reality was best illustrated by images handed down unchanged century upon century, and which gave primacy to what the books and manuscripts said reality was, not what one might see or hear for one's self.
Further, images were copied from year to year, master to master, because there could be no individual style or innovation. It is only God, or Allah, that brings into being that which did not exist before, who gives life to the lifeless. No painter could compete with Him.
"The greatest of sins is committed by painters who presume to do what He does, who claims to be as creative as He."
This implies an entirely different apprehension of reality from mine; in fact, its very opposite.
Pamuk won the Novel Prize for literature in 2006. Even in translation, he is undoubtedly a great, subtle, and vastly entertaining writer.
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