Osman Hamdi Bey, Young Woman Reading, 1880

In Young Woman Reading what book is the woman reading?

The Qur’an

What dress is the woman in Young Woman Reading, wearing?

A pale yellow silk dress and a red-orange head covering

What does Young Woman Reading depict?

A modern, active, and educated Muslim woman

Where was Hamdi born?

Istanbul, in 1842

How far did the Ottoman Empire stretch?

From North Africa to the Persian Gulf

What modern-day countries use to be part of the Ottoman Empire?

Turkey, Albania, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Romania (With parts of Hungary, Ukraine and Moldova)

By which century had Ottoman power shrunk due to the West?

In the mid-19th century (1800s)

Who is Osman Hamdi Bey’s father?

Ibrahim Edhem Pasha

Where was Hamdi’s father born?

On the island of Chios

What war orphaned Ibrahim Edhem Pasha?

The Greek War for Independence

Who eventually adopted Edhem, after he was sold into slavery?

A powerful Ottoman admiral

Why did the powerful Ottoman admiral send Edham to France?

For his education

WHo did Edham eventually teach French to? (Became his French teacher)

Sultan Abdulmecid

What position was Edham eventually elevated to after becoming the Sultan’s French teacher?

The position of Trade Minister

Edham sent Osman to Paris to study what?

Law

What did Hamdi transition to, instead of law?

Art

Who taught Hamdi art in Paris?

Gustave Boulanger

Besides Boulanger, who else inspired Hamdi’s art?

Boulanger’s friend and studio-mate Jean-Léon Gérome

What art style is Gustave Boulanger and Jean-Léon Gérome known for?

Orientalism

What is Orientalism?

An imagined, Western view of peoples and culture of “The Orient.” (Middle East, North Africa)

When was orientalism popular?

In the mid-19th century (1800s)

Who became the only known Muslim painter to produce in the European Orientalist style?

Osman Hamdi Bey

What was Hamdi’s first exhibited work called?

A lost painting called Femme turque (Turkish Woman)

Where did Hamdi display his first work of art?

At the Paris Salon in 1866

What was an important component of Hamdi’s French training?

Learning to paint human anatomy

What did Hamdi study in order to learn how to paint human anatomy?

Plaster casts, classical sculptures and live models

What is the Hadith?

A collection of saying attributed to Muhammad

How do Muslim cultures feel about the depiction of human beings in art?

It varies depending on the culture and place

What does the Hadith say about depicting humans?

Muhammad calles for the making of images of holy figures and living beings.

Who were some European artists were hired by sultans?

Ivan Aivazovsky and Stanislaw Chlebowski

Who were some Ottomans who painted the human figure in western style?

Halil Pasha, Seker Ahmed Pasha, and Sarkis Diranian (Armenian-Ottoman)

Which museum holds Halil’s drawings of male and female models?

The Sakip Sabanci Museum

How many years did Hamdi spend in France before returning to the Ottoman empire?

8 years, he returned in 1868

After he returned from France, where was Hamdi posted?

In Baghdad, as a government administrator

Who painted Prayer in the Mosque (1871)?

Jean-Leon Gerome

What is the title “Bey” used for?

High-ranking government officials in the Ottoman empire

What is Hamdi known for today?

For his artistic works and his career as a museum director and archaeologist.

In 1877, Hamdi was named the inaugural director of which museum in Istanbul?

The Imperial Museum of Antiquities

The Imperial Museum of Antiquities in Istanbul collected what?

Coins, sculpture and other artifacts from ancient Anatolia

In 1884, Hamdi helped enact new export laws that made it harder for what to happen?

For foreign entities to export antiquities from Ottoman ground

Hamdi was a palace painter to which sultan, after 1880?

Sultan Abdülhamid II

Hamdi was the founding director what what, in 1882?

Istanbul’s Academy of Fine Arts

Hamdi worked until his death in which year?

1910

What scenes did Hamdi paint while at court?

Everyday life in private and public spaces

What aspect of Hamdi’s work help produce a well-rounded vision of modern Turkish life?

His blend Ottoman and French traditions

What aspects of Ottoman material and religious culture reinforce a sense of direct, observed reality? (Young Woman Reading)

The Qur’an stand, carpet, metalwork, blue and white tiles, and incense burner

Which works did Hamdi make, showcasing figures reading or discussing the Qur’an?

Clerics Talking before a Mosque Entrance (1890) and A Young Emir Studying (1905)

In the late ottoman period, what is the name of the face covering that woman wore outside?

A yashmak

Which of Hamdi’s work shows a woman in public, veiled in a Yashmak?

At the Mosque Door (1890)

Which of Hamdi’s works showcases a women playing musical instruments?

Two Musician Girls (1880)

Which historian asserts that Hamdi speaks a “European” visual language?

historian Edhem Eldem

Where were the most frequent venues for Hamdi’s works located?

Abroad: France, Germany, Britain and the U.S.

Hamdi’s works were exhibited at which venue exhibition in Chicago?

The 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition

Hamdi’s orientalist paintings were able to help Western painters do what?

Correct their fantasies of Oriental life

Who were the main audiences of Orientalist art?

Middle class and Elite consumers

What do Western Orientalist paintings end up doing?

Painting the “Orient” as exotic, seductive and gorgeous; locked in a premodern past

What aspects of Orientalist paintings convince the audience of their “realness”?

Their high detail, visual appeal, and photorealism

What aspect of orientalist paintings tells historians that they are works of imagination, not observation?

Their depictions of scenes that white, male painters would never have been able to see.

What is a harem?

A female-only part of a private household

The French occasionally conceded that the Orientalist style was what?

An escapist fantasy

Which critic scolded orientalist painters for their desire to “run away from the world around them” in response to the Paris Salon of 1864?

Jules-Antoine Castagnary

Who wrote the article “Speaking Back to Orientalist Discourse"?

Zeynep Celik

What does Zeynep Celik argue in “Speaking Back to Orientalist Discourse”?

That Hamdi’s art reveals a “dialogue between cultures” rather than a one-sided European expectations

What aspects of painting did Hamdi use to challenge Western notions of The Orient?

Sharp detail, alluring settings, and “exotic” colors, fabrics, and textures common in Orientalist paintings

How does Hamdi present his subjects that differs from Western Orientalist paintings?

They are “thinking and questioning human beings” who have none of the “submissiveness'“ that European painters portray

How does Young Woman Reading showcase Orientals as thinking/questioning?

The woman is well dress, and absorbed in study, existing in the modern world, instead of being relaxed and scantily clad