Osman Hamdi Bey He was an intellectual painter, an art expert, and also an excellent Ottoman archaeologist.
Born December 30, 1842 as the son of Ibrahim edhem, another renowned historian and teacher of art and languages in Türkiye, when we think of Osman Hamdi Bey it is impossible not to refer to one of the most important characters in Turkish art, not only for being the distinguishable brush strokes reality of the country, but also for becoming the pioneer of the profession of museum curator in Türkiye.
From an early age, he was carried away to study law at Istanbul, a profession that stood out in the Ottoman Empire, and then to Paris, where despite his good grades and the encouragement of his family, he fell in love with art, so he abandoned the law and turned to develop His painting.
Source: Pear Museum
Beside Jean-Léon Gérôme y Gustave Boulanger, was trained in art and culture under details and colors post-impressionists de Paul GauguinEdgar Degas y Paul Cezanne. He stayed in the French capital for nine years, and his stay coincided with the first visit of an Ottoman sultan to the West, abdulaziz, who had been his father's student of French, and had now been invited to the Universal exposition from 1867 by the emperor Napoleon III.
Essentially, the Middle East It was not known how to grow economically and socially until western citizens traveled to their states, and with them brought the western / european standards. Once applied in this environment, the people of these counties became extremely curious, as they were born with this desire and need to learn more about other parts of the world, and Europa it was the most fascinating thing at all.
Because the extraordinary of the alien aspects pushed the ottoman culture To seek other places, the Sultan's visit was not only for tourist purposes, but also to learn how to expand Turkish pictorial visions to the rest of the world. By meeting Hamdi Bey, one of the first people to explore this outside world, Ottoman art was finally finding its way to globalization.
When returning from France, the imperialist movement in his country was on the march, and the people of his community were interested in building the first Imperial Ottoman Museum, an enclosure that was established for educational purposes. Society in Türkiye it was being modernized and so the focus of the space was not on antiques, but on the bivalent task of glorifying the empire through the practice of exhibition.
Before the leadership of this institution was defined, the still young illustrious founded the Archaeological Museum de Istanbul, and became its director in 1881. His taste and energy They did much to establish the reputation of the site, alongside its impressive collections of Greco-Roman antiquities. For this, not only talent was important, but influence in the guild, a gesture that the artist always cared for and cultivated, understanding that he could do little, but well spread thanks to his gift of people.
In 1892, after already a long career as a kind of manager of cultural venues, Osman was chosen as the director of the long-awaited Ottoman Imperial Museum. And although in some spheres it was believed that he got the job thanks to his father having connections to the museum, Hamdi was a clear candidate for his time serving and working in the French capital.
El romanticismo and modernity flowed from Europa al Ottoman Empire, And now, Osman was at the forefront of this.
Because of this, and through his attempts on canvas, a clash of western and eastern features by means of a landscape or important historical event, the recognized influential figure of society made paintings that become documents of the hopes, intentions and frustrations of this cultural revolution that his country was experiencing.
Osman Hamdi Bey lived to transmit topics and meanings of Middle East. His legacy is the ideas of modernity and his influences that contributed to the evolution of Ottoman Empire, alive to this day.
He died on February 24, 1910.