Raden Saleh. Osman Hamdi Bey. Hakob Hovnatanyan: Art of the World in the Belvedere’s Collection
Raden Saleh
Osman Hamdi Bey
Hakob Hovnatanyan
Art of the World in the Belvedere’s Collection
September 9, 2021 – March 27, 2022
This exhibition highlights the work of three 19th-century painters heretofore little known in Austria, whose artistic developments were significantly influenced by the cultures and art movements of their native Asian countries as well as their years of study and work in European art capitals.
Their artistic trajectories illustrate the global interconnectedness of history and the hybridity (see Homi Bhabha) of cultures that are still viewed along nation-state lines. Their reception history also points to the limited perspective of Western (art) history, in which non-European countries were, for a long time, seen as mere backdrops. This perspective is evident in the European construct of “the Orient,“ characterized by ethnocentric, colonial, and racist discourses.
So as not to tell only “a single story“ (see Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “The Danger of a Single Story“), the Belvedere called upon us as external consultants. We, in turn, asked three experts on Turkish, Armenian, and Indonesian art and culture – who themselves live and work transculturally – for their representative views on these three artists “between cultures.”
In this manner, we would like to present diverse perspectives and opinions to encourage a multi-voiced dialogue. We hope that this will enrich your visit to the exhibition!
— Ümit Mares-Altinok and Heidrun Schulze kultur & gut and diversify
RADEN SALEH
Raden Saleh was a lifelong shifter and wanderer, moving in and out of the strictly demarcated social layers of colonial world order between his own and others’ perceptions, western education and local wisdom, his upbringing in Java and life in Europe.
He was an exceptional figure in his time. Despite turbulent circumstances and political transformations, he knew how to skillfully navigate different social ranks within European and Javanese contexts.
Global art history frequently identifies him as the pioneer of modern Indonesian painting. However, pinpointing the beginning of modernism in an Indonesian context is difficult. The style and zeitgeist that Raden Saleh embraced are reflected in his painting technique, and they give weight to the thesis regarding him as the first modern painter in Java. Realistic depictions were previously unknown in the region.
Modernism in Indonesia can be seen not only as the result of the intellectual pursuit of open-mindedness, a move away from the mythological toward “reason,” but also as a result of confronting colonial power.
In fact, colonialism in Indonesia gave rise to agents of modernism, of which Raden Saleh was one.
— Bianca Mayasari Figl
OSMAN HAMDI BEY
Born in Istanbul in 1842, Osman Hamdi Bey was a painter, archaeologist, museologist, and intellectual, and one of the most significant, gifted, and controversial artists during the occidentalization of Turkey.
His work is permeated by contradictions that preoccupy Turkey still today: East and West, bourgeoisie and working class, tradition and modernism. An examination of his work reveals not only a social class that had grown estranged from itself but also the individual’s insecurity that defined this epoch. He stands for an elite primarily cultivated in Europe, who were looking to the West. He communicated a view of the Orient, reflecting a European perspective. In the tradition of his Western predecessors, his paintings show figures that can be perceived as “Eastern” in an environment adorned with “typical Oriental” objects that may seem timeless and mystical to the viewer.
Osman Hamdi Bey’s work is therefore not only of art historical importance but also of cultural and political interest. It gives us an insight like no other into the deep confusion of a country in a time of great upheaval.
— Neslihan Yakut
HAKOB HOVNATANYAN
Hakob Hovnatanyan created portraits of the affluent circle that surrounded him in the multicultural city of Tbilisi, which, from an Armenian perspective, was considered the center of Armenian culture in the east as Constantinople was to the west. Armenian culture, situated at the crossroads between the Christian West and Muslim East, had preserved its specific characteristics despite centuries of Iranian supremacy. With the rise of the Russian Tsarist empire, however, the balance of cultures shifted. While some Armenians began to align themselves with the West, with Europe, others perceived this as a threat to their culture and turned to the East – not to assimilate but for the sake of not losing their own identity in favor of another’s.
Do Hakob Hovnatanyan’s portraits also echo this struggle between East and West? On the surface, features such as the almost geometric lines of the upright postures, the almond-shaped eyes, and the seemingly inert mouths in the portraits of Shah Nāser ad-Din and those of Tbilisi society appear nearly identical, their gazes also always directed at the viewer. Even so, as much as they resemble one another, they vary in subtle nuances of color and meticulously rendered details.
Similar yet different, they reflect not only Hakob Hovnatanyan’s own identity, but, more importantly, the Armenian identity: East and West coming together, yet neither of the two.
— Jasmine Dum-Tragut
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