1914 GENERATION ARTISTS

 

In 1882 art education became available to civilians with the establishment of the Academy of Fine Arts (classes started in 1883). The 1914 Generation artists were graduates of this school who went on to study in Europe and upon their return home launched a new era in Turkish painting. The transitional period between the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic was shaped by these artists, who introduced a new form of narration to painting. Taking local cultural values as their starting point, they endeavoured to present a new outlook on life to society at large. While the 1914 Generation artists painted popular views of Istanbul's islands, pine woods, bays and mosque courtyards, Nazmi Ziya Güran declared that "art is not for art's sake but for the people". Hilmi Ziya Ülken likened the work of the 1914 Generation to the new movement in literature known as Fecr-i Ati (Future Dawn) that emerged in 1909: "They found what they had sought in Fecr-i Ati literature in painting: the beaches of the Princes' Islands, pine woods, morning at Kalamış Bay, mosque courtyards." Meanwhile, director of the Academy of Fine Arts, Burhan Toprak, commented that they played the same role in the plastic arts as the Halit Ziya Uşakligil and Tevfik Fikret school played in literature.

The generation of Turkish military painters was followed by a group of artists known as the 1914 Generation or the Çallı Generation, who after the proclamation of the Second Constitution in 1908 had studied abroad, either independently or by means of a state scholarship. Most of these artists studied in Paris at the studio of Fernand Cormon or at Académie Julian. At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 they returned to Turkey. Avni Lifij, Nazmi Ziya Güran, İbrahim Çallı, Ali Sami Boyar, Namık İsmail, Feyhaman Duran, Hikmet Onat, Mehmet Ruhi Arel and Sami Yetik were among these progressive artists, most of whom remained active after the Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923. These pioneers of painting outdoors in Turkey are also known as the Turkish Impressionists. Unlike artists of the previous period, they attached more importance to light and colour than to design and form. Most of the 1914 Generation artists painted landscapes and picturesque Istanbul scenes, but also scenes of modern urban life, women, interiors, nudes and portraits. In 1916 these artists launched the Galatasaray Exhibitions that continued to be held annually until 1951 and invigorated the art world in Istanbul.

Impressionism emerged at a time when the French Positivist philosophers and scientists were examining the theory of perception and colour. Ottoman Impressionism had no such intellectual foundation. The 1914 Generation artists were also known as the Turkish Impressionists because they adopted Impressionism as a sentimental form of narration combined with light and colour variations, and emphasised subjectivity in art. Although the 1914 Generation approached Impressionism more superficially, without its intellectual dimension, they nevertheless brought to it a new viewpoint and narrational diversity through their personal interpretations. These artists lent fresh momentum to artistic life in Istanbul by showing their work at exhibitions, and as the first Turkish teachers at the Academy of Fine Arts played a major role in training new generations of artists.