Under glass: Neveser Aksoy’s fragile collection
by Sibel DORSAN
Painting under glass is a technique frequently associated with Byzantium and the Ottoman Empire but also practised in many parts of the world. Paris-based Turkish artist Neveser Aksoy is an authority on the subject. She can reel off the history of the form, its social significance and its leading European and Turkish proponents. She has produced works of her own in this genre. And she has a truly international collection to illustrate every point she makes.
Enhanced bright colours, the play of light and a built-in protective coating… These are among the rewards awaiting the artist prepared to persevere with the curious reverse-order technique of painting sous-verre – under glass. Over the centuries, countless professional and folk artists around the world – and not least in Turkey - have found the effort worthwhile. Today, a Turkish artist, Neveser Aksoy, is among the leading collectors who carry the long tradition forward, in a line as unbroken as possible.
Until recently, paintings under glass were commonly found on the walls of Turkey’s coffeehouses, houses, confectioners, butchers and barbershops, and in places of worship such as mosques, mescit, dervish lodges and tombs. These were the works of untrained Ottoman folk painters, inventing or reproducing religious texts or legendary scenes. But in our age of cheap paper and new printing methods, business is not what it was. An ancient art is in crisis.
Origins and masters
The story of glass art parallels the development and spread of its principal material. Following its chance discovery, glass was used by Mediterranean and Mesopotamian civilisations such as Phoenicians, Egyptians and Babylonians in 3500-2500 BC. The date of the first glass painting is unclear, but eastern and Jewish masters are known to have used the technique in pre-Christian times. Following the collapse of the Roman Empire, Byzantium became a major centre of both the industry and the art. Many books and articles date the start of the spread of sous-verre painting throughout Europe to the capture of Constantinople by the Turks and the emigration of the Byzantine experts, particularly to Venice.
The art is also practised in Asian countries, the Far East and America. There are 18th and 19th century examples from Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, India, China, Japan, Indonesia, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Senegal, Mali, Mexico, Peru and the USA.
One of the oldest extant Turkish works is “Praise for Sultan Mahmut II”, an inscription-painting in the form of a Mevlevi coin, dated 1817. The work is on display at Topkapı Museum, together with sous-verre calligraphies by Mehmet Sadık (1831) and Mehmet Emin (1839), which depict verses from the Koran and are adorned with flower-motif borders. At the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts, there is an inscription under glass dated 1834 and created by İbrahim Nuri through the sole use of golden gilding colours. At the Foundations Calligraphy Arts Museum, there is a work dating as far back as 1723 featuring maxims inscribed by Derviş Muhammed on the inner surface of a bottle containing a Koran on a lectern.
Tracing the past
It was in the West that sous-verre art first became a theme for researchers and collectors. As efforts to preserve the fragile paintings intensified, numerous articles and books were published and exhibitions held. In 1979, Aksoy visited an exhibition of sous verre paintings by Udo Dammert at the Goethe Institute in Paris in 1979. The exhibition featured samples of sous verre paintings from many countries, many dating back to the 18th and 19th centuries. However, there were no samples of Turkish sous verre. When the time came for Aksoy to select a theme for her Sorbonne master’s thesis, there was a gap waiting to be filled.
Still Paris-based, Aksoy today owns one of the World’s largest collections, comprising more than 270 paintings under glass. It was Aksoy who held the first large exhibition of Turkish paintings under glass – at the Vedat Nedim Tör Museum in Istanbul in 1997, with the support of Yapı Kredi Bank. But her task was not easy at first. In France, Germany, Romania, Poland, Italy and Czechoslovakia, much research had already been done, and there were rich public and private collections. In Istanbul, a few museums owned such works, but they were not exhibited.
Tracing the past
Finding sous-verre masterpieces in antique shops or attics is an unlikely prospect. Even if they do not get broken, works of glass art made by folk artists lacking technical training deteriorate quickly. Only the expert artists leave dates and signatures. Aksoy believes the most interesting works are to be found in private collections. She also points to the existence of works created in foreign countries using the techniques current there, and only later brought to Turkey. As an example, she cites an anonymous sous-verre portrait of Sultan Abdülmecit, believed to date to the second half of the 19th century, which is among the portraits of sultans exhibited at the Pera Museum.
While Aksoy purchased a number of Turkish sous verre works for her studies, she also went on purchasing paintings from other countries from the antique shops and exhibition halls she visited in Paris. There she came across paintings from India, China, Peru, Indonesia, Romania, Poland, Syria, Iran, Tunisia, Senegal, Mali, Myanmar, Spain, Austria, Japan and Britain. Her collection today includes examples from 26 countries.
“My biggest dream was to hold an exhibition including Turkish sous verre in Paris,” she recalls. During the term of former Culture Minister Fikri Sağlar, it was decided that such an exhibition would be held in 1995 at the Musée de l’Homme. But the minister changed and Aksoy has yet to try again.
Making your own
There are still plenty of artists painting under glass. At the beginning of the 20th century, painters such as Kandinsky, Klee, Franz Marc, G. Mauter and A. Macke of the German expressionist group Blaue Reiter took a great interest in sous-verre. Later, renowned painters such as Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Louis Marcoussis, Laszlo Mokoly-Nagy, Oskar Kokoschka, Joseph Stella and Jackson Pollock all made use of the technique. There are still folk painters practising the art in Peru, Senegal, Mali, Ukraine, Romania, the Czech Republic, Tunisia and Syria as well as professional painters in France, America and Belgium.
In Turkey, the folk painter Mehmet Ali Katrancı who lives in Konya, is widely known, even though he does not sign his paintings, and no longer works under glass. A handful of contemporary Turkish artists have used the technique and held exhibitions. Aksoy herself learned the method at the State Fine Arts Academy as long ago as 1974. She also produced works under glass in her student years in Paris.
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Painting in reverse
Neveser Aksoy explains the technique of painting under glass and the way it has been applied in Turkey as follows:
“Sous verre painting is a cold painting technique which uses powder paint, water-paint, gouache, oils and in recent times even acrylic paints on the back of the glass. While the final product resembles paintings made on paper or canvas, the method is completely different. With a normal painting, the details, signature and date are the last things to be added; in this technique, the outline of the painting, the final details and the signature appear on the glass first. Since the outline drawn on the glass is seen in reverse, the elements on the left have to be imagined located on the right. This is of particular importance for inscriptions and dates. The final phase is to add the background colours.
Sometimes gilding, a mirror or patterned cloth is used to create a distinct appearance. This is one of the distinguishing features of Turkish sous verre. Apart from its subject matter, the Turkish art has its own styles and techniques. The colours are used superficially, as in miniatures. The background is generally black, white or blue. Inscriptions and inscription-picture compositions usually have decorative borders of flowers, bouquets, wreaths or geometric shapes.
Besides religious themes, paintings sometimes depict the landscape, folk stories and myths. Such paintings were believed to protect the members of the household against the evil eye and various diseases and disasters. A picture of the Şahmeran, a creature half-human half-serpent, thought to provide abundance in the home, is to be found in the trousseau of every young girl, especially in East and Southeast Anatolia.”
Viewing opportunity
Paintings under glass from 28 countries on four continents will be on display in Istanbul between October 21 and December 31. The exhibition will include 160 items from the private collection of Neveser Aksoy, in addition to a special collection belonging to the museum’s founders Suna and İnan Kıraç and valuable samples from various other collections.
The exhibition is to be staged at the Pera Museum in Tepebaşı. The museum occupies the former Bristol Hotel building, which was constructed in 1893 in a then-fashionable district of the city. The hotel was restored and converted into a museum by the Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation. It opened its doors to visitors and art-enthusiasts in June 2005.
The Pera Museum also houses permanent collections of portraits from the Ottoman Empire, Kütahya tiles and ceramics and Anatolian weights and measures.
(DIPLOMAT - September 2004 - Ankara)