This sweet little pen and ink water color in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston is attributed to the Venetian painter, Bellini (memorialized by the refreshing drink combining fresh peaches and champagne) in 1479. Bellini was brought to the court of Constantinople by Royal decree. Story has it that when the Sultan was dissatisfied with Bellini's painting of John the Baptist, he decapitated a slave in his presence to show him what a severed head really looked like.
I'm imagining a foreign country and an even more foreign time. How could "modern" notions of civil rights, personal expression and aesthetics have stood up to absolute power? Did such thinking even exist? Worth pondering: the Byzantine civilization was a star that shown brightly during Europe's Dark Ages. The Classical Greek word "to innovate" was transformed into "to injure." For nearly fourteen hundred years, Christian orthodoxy demanded bending to the yoke of obedience. Six hundred years - and millions of lives later- in modern Turkey, "islam" means "to submit."
When traveling, I always learn at least as much about myself, our time and place as I do about the host country, their history and art. I'll keep capturing images and writing observations. Can't promise learning calligraphy, however.
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