Ottomans, Venetians, and the Riches of Cultural Exchange
Sometimes friends, sometimes foes, always open for business.
In 1479, the artist Gentile Bellini left home and set sail for Constantinople.
Gentile was as Venetian as the Grand Canal—he came from a family of prominent Venetian painters, he was the official portrait artist of the Doge, and his talent was often employed to create art for public buildings. Venice was the gateway to the East, far-off lands from where spices, grains, and raw fibers for textiles flowed into Europe, where the Classical texts preserved for centuries by Arab scholars found their way back to the West, along with their own treatises on science, medicine, and mathematics. In exchange, Venetian traders sold goods such as salt, paper, textiles, glassware, and of course, art.
It was a rapidly-changing world. In 1453, the Byzantine Empire fell to Ottoman invaders, and the Sultan Mehmed II now sat on the throne of Constantinople. Venetian merchants were accustomed to foreigners (the wealth of their city depended on their ability to do business with them), but now, a Muslim ruler controlled the empire to the East. Catholic Venice would have to establish a diplomatic relationship with the Sultan.
That is precisely how Gentile found himself in the Sultan’s court. Mehmed II was only twenty-one when he conquered Constantinople. Now in his forties, he was keen to build the city into a leading center for the arts and sciences. The Venetians were a steady presence in Constantinople—shortly after the conquest, they sent a bailo (an ambassador based in the city) to represent Venice and oversee diplomatic relations with the Ottomans. Mehmed knew well that the cities of the Italian peninsula were producing artists of astonishing quality, whose works were so lifelike in their depth, shading, and perspective. He wanted a portrait from one of these painters. Who did the Venetians have in mind?
One name topped their list.
Gentile Bellini spent a year in Constantinople, painting for the royal court and gaining inspiration that would influence his work for the rest of his life. The portrait of the Sultan above has been painted over in the years since Gentile produced it (leading some historians to question how much of the original work was by Gentile, or whether the artist collaborated on this image). Nevertheless, it remains a symbol of the cultural exchange that flourished between the Venetians and the Ottomans. Certainly, it’s a testament to how two very different societies learned to cooperate for the sake of commerce.
Recently, I attended an exhibit at the Frist Art Museum in Nashville called “Venice and the Ottoman Empire,” which explores their complex relationship and the impact it had on the arts. During this period, the Ottomans and Venetians fought in nine conflicts ranging from brief territorial squabbles to lengthier wars. Yet as their land holdings ebbed and flowed, it was their close ties in commerce that kept the love-hate relationship intact over the centuries.
Both Ottoman and Venetian artisans influenced each other. For example, tulips were a popular symbol of the Ottoman court’s wealth and splendor; tulip patterns therefore frequently decorated Ottoman textiles and pottery, which in turn inspired Venetian artisans to do the same. Meanwhile, Ottoman artisans were influenced by Venetian carpet designs, and they adapted the Venetians’ use of velvet and silk for their own carpets and kaftans.
Venetian silk was so favored by Ottoman leaders that ambassadors would use these luxurious textiles as gifts. (Another favored gift was Parmesan cheese.) Ottomans responded to demand by establishing their own silk industry in Bursa, which Venetian traders would visit and later bring ideas home. By the end of the sixteenth century, the arts and crafts of Venice and Constantinople were in such conversation with each other that discerning the difference between some of their pottery or textiles can be difficult. Everything from book-bindings to shields were objects of cross-cultural exchange.
The exhibit at the Frist ended with Mariano Fortuny, the great textile designer of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—Spanish by birth, Venetian by choice. Fortuny was the subject of a video on the Crossroads YouTube channel; we explored his wife Henriette Negrin’s revolutionary design known as the Delphos gown, which Fortuny produced at his Venetian atelier with his signature silk pleating. Fortuny’s textile designs decorated clothing, curtains, pillows, and more, and he frequently made use of the Ottoman motifs that had so inspired Venetian artisans centuries before him. Tulips and pomegranates often adorned his iconic fabrics.
Fortuny died in 1946; he lived to see both World Wars as well as the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1922. Gentile Bellini sailed east at the dawn of the empire, and during its twilight, Fortuny found inspiration in its rich artistic traditions.
Today, Istanbul and Venice remain thriving centers for the arts. First hosted in 1895, the Venice Biennale remains one of the most important events in the art world’s calendar. Despite authoritarian crackdowns on free speech, young artists in Istanbul continue to produce exciting work, and the city has witnessed a surge in new gallery openings over the past fifteen years. In thinking about Istanbul’s role as a gateway between the East and West, one work that comes to mind is Rasim Aksan’s Live a Life You Will Remember (2022). Aksan, born in 1984, produced this stunning hyperrealist painting with acrylic airbrush and colored pencil. Edo art, a Greek amphora, the Finding of Moses, and a blend of Egyptian, medieval European, and Surrealist motifs come together at the edge of someone’s bed. The scene is framed by curtains that could have been sent to Constantinople on a Venetian ship, or vice versa.
Aksan’s art often explores the overwhelming onslaught of images in our contemporary, digital world. (“Live a life you will remember” is a lyric in an Avicii song—an artist whom we lost far too soon.) The art of several empires are scattered throughout the room, and whatever overwhelm one might feel when viewing the space, the thought that came to me first was that this bedroom belonged to the most interesting person in the world. Or at the very least, someone like the Venetian merchants, who were faced with borders and saw only the horizon ahead.
Great history lesson. Fascinating how there was so much artistic cross -reference!