Page 80 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

The Byzantine image, however, was doomed of late Quattrocento orientalism, the truth is
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by the advance of the Ottomans. Like a balance, more complicated. In the first place, Gentile
Christendom's push down against Islam in the Bellini was not the only artist of talent to visit
West, in Spain, was matched by the rise of the Mehmed's court. The mistake has been to credit
Ottomans in the East, as they drove into the him uncritically with each and every late-fif-
Balkans and Hungary. The Ottomans' military teenth century portrait of an oriental. His influ-
impact should have been clear to the West at ence has been exaggerated and the contribution
least as early as 1396, when Ottoman forces of his fellow visitors underestimated. Bellini's
routed a combined Crusader army at the battle influence, as we have seen, was believed to have
of Nicopolis. But it was with the conquest of spread beyond his native Venice, for he was
Constantinople in 1453 that they entered into thought to be the source of the Ottoman types
the consciousness of all of Europe. The year in Pinturicchio's frescoes in Rome and Siena. As
marks a turning point in European images of a consequence, the artist to whom this group of
the Levant for several reasons. drawings of Ottomans is here attributed, Cos-
Following 1453, Ottomans replaced Byzan- tanzo da Ferrara, has languished in obscurity,
tines as the principal Near Eastern type in even though his talent should have been obvious
European visual imagery. The change can be from the quality of his medal of Mehmed the
summarized by comparing Pisanello's medal of Conqueror, which Hill justly described as one of
John vin, the penultimate emperor of Byzan- "the finest portrait medals of the Renaissance." 16
tium, with Costanzo da Ferrara's medal of Gentile Bellini's Ottoman studies had far
Mehmed the Conqueror, first Ottoman Sultan greater impact outside Venice than in his native
of Istanbul (cat. 107). It represented more than city. By influencing the young Diirer during his
a mere change of costume. Whereas the image first trip to Venice in 1494-1495, Bellini even fig. 4. Attributed to Gentile Bellini, Seated Scribe.
of the Byzantine emperor resulted from John achieved an influence, by proxy, in northern Pen and gouache on paper. Isabella Stewart Gardner
vm's visit to Italy, the figure of the Ottoman Europe. Ever receptive to exotica, Diirer seems Museum, Boston
was based upon sketches by Italian artists who to have responded with enthusiasm to the Otto-
had visited Istanbul. However, it must be man figure studies he saw in Venice in 1495. He
stressed that these visits to the Levant were not copied a group of Three Orientals (cat. no) cally qua Ottomans. In short, Diirer affected
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occasioned by a European spirit of enquiry but after Gentile Bellini's model either from a now the appearance rather than the function of the
by the patronage of a Muslim potentate, lost preparatory drawing or directly from the oriental in northern European art.
Mehmed the Conqueror. The artists traveled background of Gentile's Procession in Saint Gentile Bellini can take credit for being one
East because they had been invited, and the Mark's Square (Academia, Venice), a painting of the main sources of the "Ottoman mode" in
scope of their work in Istanbul was dictated by that is dated 1496 and which was presumably in European art of the late fifteenth century, but,
their patron's interests. progress during Diirer's visit. Diirer made other as we have seen, he was not the only direct
The conquest of Constantinople in 1453 made copies of Turkish figures, as well, and in the source. Moreover, the "Ottoman mode" was not
the twenty-one-year-old Mehmed n master of decade between his first and second visits to the only expression of orientalism in European
an empire that straddled East and West, giving Venice his graphic work was filled with Otto- art of the period. Another drew not on the
political justification to interests he shared with man types wearing either the turban wound world of the Ottomans but on that of their great
the humanist princes of Italy—in geography around a ribbed cap or the tall felt hat of the rivals, the Mamluks of Egypt and Syria. The
and cartography, for example, in military mat- Janissaries. 17 "Mamluk mode" is evident in the other paint-
ters from advances in artillery to star-shaped Diirer transformed the northern European ing that was commissioned in 1492, Bellini's
fortresses, and, most pertinently, in history and visual platitude of a Muslim into a more specific Saint Mark Preaching in Alexandria.
portraiture. Mehmed sustained an interest in Ottoman image that mirrored contemporary For the Mamluk figures in this painting,
medallic portraiture throughout his life so that reality. In almost all cases, though, Diirer's Bellini had to rely on someone else's models,
he became, in quantitative terms at least, the Ottomans continued to fill the traditional role because Gentile himself never visited Egypt
most active patron of Italian medalists in the of the oriental in European art, as the epitome or Syria. In 1492 Gentile agreed with his con-
Quattrocento. He was depicted by a greater of despotism —the emperor Domitian ordering fraternity, the Scuola di San Marco, to renew
number of medalists than any other patron, the torture of Saint John in one of the images the paintings of the life of Saint Mark that had
though he was never, as far as we know, from his woodcut Apocalypse, for example —or been destroyed in a fire of 1485, though in fact
depicted more than once by the same artist. 13 as a symbol of corruption kneeling before the the cycle was not completed until long after his
The most famous Italian artist to visit Meh- Sea Monster of the Apocalypse. Diirer also death in 1506. Saint Mark had been the first
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med's court was Gentile Bellini. When he placed Ottomans in attendance on the Three Bishop of Alexandria, which made an Egyptian
arrived back in Venice, dressed in Ottoman cos- Kings. This was appropriate since, according to setting for the paintings appropriate.
tume, he was greeted on the quayside by the a tradition that began in Cologne, the coat-of- Gentile's concern with place was greater
Doge, as well as his brother Giovanni, and "half arms of the Magus Caspar was the Crescent and than Pinturicchio's. His primary concern was
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the populace of the city/' The legend of his Star, and Europe associated that symbol with to suggest Alexandria. His method was, first,
oriental adventure had already begun. Although the Turks in particular. Diirer used other Otto- to provide a synopsis of the city's best-known
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Gentile Bellini benefited greatly from this visit, man types for sages of the East such as the monuments, producing a pictorial equivalent
receiving fame and official honors in his life- astrologer al-Sufi ("Azophi Arabus") (cat. of the literary encomium. His church, based
time and being credited by scholars as the father 118). Only rarely did he depict them specifi- on the Basilica of Saint Mark in Venice, would
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EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD 79