MİNYATÜRLERDE YAPIIARIN GORUNTULENDIRILMESİ: ALTIGEN GÖRÜNÜMLÜ YAPILARA İLİŞKİN GÖZLEMLER

In the latter half of this century, a wealth of classificatory, descriptive, and interpretative material has accumulated on Eastern miniature painting. There is still a certain degree of persistent overlook, however, in identifying the technical manner of representation of architectural objects found in a large number of these miniatures. The particular reference here is to depicting in miniature paintings a building, a part of a building, or a free-standing object like a tent, a canopy, a throne or sometimes even a simple utilitarian table either as background or appurtenance to a scene. Although it is widely acknowledged that Eastern miniature painters represented reality in a way that was different from what was developed by the Renaissance artists in the West, the exact nature of the difference hardly seems to have been explained technically. This essay attempts at reexamining the representational technique used by the 15th and 16th century miniature painters in the depiction of a simple rectangular building or object in frontal view in a way that it would appear to have a hexagonal top view or plan form.From Çatalhöyük to Pompei, and from countless churches to the 19th century mosques and mansions of Anatolia and the Balkans, a proliferation of real or imaginary architectural and urban portraiture in wall paintings and mosaics is considered to reflect an urge to capture and bring indoors the elements of the outside domain in a myriad of styles, compositions, and details or techniques of rendering (Ettinghausen, 1972, 28) (1). As stated by Erzen, a more intimate, almost personal exposure to architectural objects, however, is achieved through manuscript illustration due simply to the small size of the miniature paintings of the East (Erzen, 1991, 10-11). The same may be said of a certain genre of map illustrations as well. When any illustration İs İn question, it is commonly accepted that the representation of an object is largely a matter of expression, whatever the size and the medium used, in that the artist essentially depicts the object in a manner that is possibly different from the way the beholder may be perceiving it (2). As such, it must be true also of the Eastern art of miniature painting despite the expectation that representation of the real object must carry a degree of documentary quality and, therefore, present a reliable level of objectivity, authenticity, and truthfulness. In order to discuss this point further, one wants to look first at certain technicalities. In the West, what were to become the viable norms of representational techniques, like most tenets of architectural professionalism, were first recorded by Vitruvius. He defined a suitable picture as the realistic image of something that could or did exist in the physical world (Forseth, 1984, 14). The rediscovery of the linear perspective later in Renaissance firmly established the theoretical formulations of perspective construction in order to guarantee the truthfulness in representations of nature (Benevolo, 1977,83). Along the Vitruvian definition, truthfulness for the Renaissance artists meant a theoretically correct representation of three dimensional forms to be made on a two dimensional plane (3). Although not based on Vitruvian canons, Eastern architectural and engineering practices, too, are known to have possessed a level of professionalism not unlike that of the West. It is known, for instance, that technical, architectural scale drawings as well as realistic models of wax or other materials were made in the 15th and 16th century Ottoman Empire and the collection of the drawings in the Royal Architectural Workshop survived well into the 19th century (Necipoğlu- Kafadar, 1986; Ccrasi, 1988) (4). Art in Islamic countries, on the other hand, was not recognized necessarily as an imitation of reality like it was in the West (îpşiroğlu, 1980,113). Erzen still argues, however, that in the classical Ottoman period 'artistic work was conceived in a network of relations with a world already supplied and ordered with meaning' and that 'the artist was there to perform on an already ordered stage and to match his creation to an already perfect organization handed down to him' although this was all within a 'clearly theatrical atmosphere that may be rooted in the artist's world view' (Erzen, 1991,6). This must be true in the world of the miniature painter, too, and injects a certain twist to the documentary quality of his work depicting architectural and urban features, especially if one allows for the 'relational approach in which things... may change appearance according to how they are viewed' (Erzen, 1991, 7). The chosen tools of the miniature artist in his representation of the outside world are not, therefore, expected to be the same as those of other disciplines or those prescribed for contemporaneous Western painting. Orbay-Grignon connects this to an attitude which is said to lie at the base of the 'quasi-unanimous assumption that pictorial coherence can only be achieved with linear perspective' and, hence, of the reluctance to study the Eastern miniatures as an alternative pictorial system (Orbay-Grignon, 1996, 45-46). Although a detailed account of this argument remains outside the intent of the present writing, the fulcrum of challenge directed at the said altitude must be close to the claim that perspectivist theory is the only one to explain how the layout of space is to be perceived in pictures (Haber, 1979, 85). Therefore, scholars looking al Eastern miniature paintings must have long felt seriously restricted for proper means of assessment (5). In addition, the fact that practical aspects of the geometrical optics of perspective were originally proposed by Euclid millenia before the Renaissance may impede its universal validity further. However, the theory's critical shortcomings are not due primarily lo ils archaic roots, but more lo its peculiar handling of the acl of vision itself. In Haber's words, the rules of perspective work only for a one-eyed, motionless, and properly placed observer, because 'the pattern of light reflected lo the eye from a scene will match that reflected from a proper depiction of the scene only if the observer uses one eye -the other eye, because it is in a different place in the observer's head, will receive a different pattern of light-, if the observer stands still, and if the observer stands with an eye exactly in the same position in space as the painter's eye when he depicted the scene' (Haber, 1979,85). Many artists of the Renaissance were obviously aware of these shortcomings, like foreshortening, and tried lo avoid them by sometimes interrupting the converging lines before they reach the vanishing point (Orbay-Grignon, 1996, 47). In order to correct some of the inherent or consequential distorlions of perspective drawings, architect and painter Viola-Zanini suggested in the 17th century a method of representation based on the idea of a 'travelling vanishing point' ralher than a fixed one. The method was adopted by many painters of the time and eventually gave way to what is now known as the 'glide projection' which is essentially a measured pictorial drawing system which consists of combining several optically correct views, instead of only one, placed on a shifting vantage point along a discernible viewing path (Forseth, 1984,13). Inadequacies of the perspectivist theory, if adhered to as the sole truthful means of representation in evaluating depictions produced according to other norms and intents, will also hamper a proper appreciation of their meaning, whatever the period or style. Mention is often made of ancient Egyptian art, which easily falls outside the scope of Western canons of artistic comprehension. Hagen explains the difficulty with Egyptian art as being a consequence of the assumption that the eye works like a camera fixed to one point in space. 'Abandon that notion' she says 'and the perceptual validity of Egyptian art is immediately apparent' (Hagen, 1979, 209). She also proposes that there arc three perceptual ways in which one representational system differs from another. 'First, one style differs from another in the station point assumption made by the artist, be it one station point versus many, central versus eccentric, or near versus far. Second, styles differ in their relative emphasis on the variant versus the invariant properties of objects and scenes. Third, paintings and styles can be categorized according to the artist's relative degree of interest in the three (versus the two) dimensional components of the painting' (Hagen, 1979, 201). Furthermore, there is always the cliche question: Does the artist represent what he sees, or sees what he or she represents? If one elaborates more on this and recognizes that phenomenal and cognitive elements of perception are differently weighted vis-â-vis varying pictorial purposes, several varieties of pictorial realism may in fact be distinguished. A. Tormey and J. Tormey refer to 'cognitive realism', for instance, which they say is the representation of objects as they are known or believed to be rather than how they simply appear or are seen. It is the result of an attempt to depict objects in such a way that their most important, defining, unique, or essential characteristics are represented with all the details actually in existence, not only those the artist can see at the moment, but those he knows are there as well (Tormey, Tormey, 1979, 290). The Eastern miniature painting exhibits this attribute at a fairly complex level which it shares with Cubism on one hand, and the so-called 'x-ray drawings' of the Australian aborigines on the other. Concerning Cubism, Gombrich states that it is also an attempt in compensation for the shortcomings of the one-eyed vision. Referring lo Braque's 'Still Life: The Table', he argues that 'the picture embodies clues of which we could become aware only through movement or touch. We are made to see the outline of a table even under and behind objects, and it can be claimed that this corresponds to our actual experience in life' (Gombrich, 1972, 239) (6). In the case of the aboriginal drawings, loo, the artist depicts every detail of the body, including the ordinarily unexposed backbone, ribs, and internal organs, because he knows they exist and regards these as no less important than the characteristic features of a man's or animal's outward appearance (Adam, 1958, 37). The argument may even be further traced through some of Henri Matisse's later works which reflect his exposure to and interest in Eastern miniatures (Bloom and Blair, 1995, 309). A cross-reference may usefully be made here lo the use of the term 'axonometric projections' in connection with architectural and urban depictions in Eastern miniatures. Axonometric drawings are indeed special techniques of showing unexposed parts, like the side elevation of a building, which would otherwise be excluded from a truthful delineation of the frontal view especially in strictly orthographic representations. It must quickly be added, however, that a side elevation casually added to a frontal view in miniature paintings İs just that and, as such, should not be confused with what arc technically known as axonometric projections, whether isometric or dimetric. Axonometric projection is but one of the two categories of paraline drawings. The other is known as 'oblique projection'. Both categories are useful tools of constructing an object in three dimensions on the page. Oblique projections can be generated off plans and elevations because of the procedure of their projection, by which one face remains parallel to the picture plane like in the miniature depictions (Cooper, 1992,139-141) (7). In axonometric views, on the other hand, the depicted object is viewed as tilted relative to the picture plane, which is not the case in miniature paintings. Elevation oblique, therefore, is a more appropriate term to refer to the technical character of the miniature paintings, although this too falls somewhat short of a full comprehension at times. For example, depending on the amount of information intended to be given by the representation, the miniature painter often adds a second side elevation as well, making the scene as if it is drawn by not one, but two oblique projections superposed. This may stem from the artist's effort to include as much knowledge about the scene or the object as he may possess. It may also be relevant to the significance of the depicted object or it may be due to the detail of the survey work required, as in the case of the map drawings and urban views which accompany accounts of military campaigns or trade missions. In any case, the practice makes it possible to show three elevations, as well as the top view, to be seen all at once in such a way that the building thus represented appears as if it has a hexagonal plan layout, whereas in actual fact it is a simple rectangle (Figures 1, 2). Not only generally overlooked and taken perhaps for granted, this practice even seems to be somewhat misleading. Orbay-Grignon, for instance, states in reference to the building depicted as part of the venue for the scene shown in Figure 1 that 'the use of an axonometric form is more likely to be related to a desire of clearly explaining a particular shape, such as the hexagonal pavilion or its three sided bay window' (Orbay-Grignon, 1996,48-49). That there are hardly any free standing hexagonal buildings recorded to exist in any credible survey of Islamic architecture is support enough for the explanation offered here for the disproportionate profusion of hexagonal buildings in hundreds of miniature paintings regardless of whether or not these may mostly be imaginary or symbolic structures. The same may also be said of other smaller objects like chairs, tables, thrones, canopies, gazebos, and the like (8). On the other hand, Orbay-Grignon's statement thai the apparent 'shift of viewing direction...not only underlines the significance of the individual parts of the composition, but also suggests that these objects arc seen from different angles in space' is an important one (Orbay-Grignon, 1996,49). It then follows even without a full acknowledgement of the glide projections mentioned earlier that the dependence on multiple viewpoints secures a truer representation of space by implication of movement '... not related to an illusionistic pictorial structure, but rather to a virtual one' (Orbay-Grignon, 1996, 49, emphasis added). It is as if the representation thus becomes a continuing narrative or a serial documentation of as many aspects of the building or the object as can be depicted through the knowledge of the artist, all at once and juxtaposed to give maximum information on the exterior or interior, or sometimes even both together. This may occasionally be overdone to the extent that even something like the rear elevation of a building, not only visually hidden from the view, but also made physically inaccessible by a surrounding garden wall, is shown almost like a natural extension of what is represented in already distorted orthogonality (Figures 3, 4). More often than not, this additive, sequential quality further enables the artist to include in his composition a complete string of the calligraphic or other decorations. A sudden, almost abrupt upward swing of the viewing direction to show the frontally invisible underside of the shading canopy with all four overhanging folds opened up, as in Figure 1, must be intended as much to show its ornamentation in full as to flaunt the intimacy of the artist to the scene. Understandably, the effort to include things that are not necessarily parts of the view from a particular station point may be outside the realm of the classical foundations of Western representations before the 20th century. Wherever it occurs, however, there is a logical enough and equally understandable reasoning behind it (9), be it an ancient Egyptian drawing, the aborigine's representation of a fish, a cubist still-life, or an Eastern miniature. In all, the fundamental objective is to convey more cognitive information which leads to a different kind of truthfulness from that provided by the stationary point perspective, and which may merit the term 'intellectual representation' as opposed to the purely optical one (Tormey and Tormey, 1979,291) (10). It affords an almost virtual movement around the scene with a number of different views to be had simultaneously, including a hint of the plan. When viewed in this light, Eastern miniatures are seen not as simplistic, esoteric representations of the physical world, but as highly sophisticated and intellectually laden, complex way of documenting it, possibly because they do not conform to the stricter, more restrictive norms of depiction. The Renaissance-based stationary point perspective had found its climactic perfection of truthfulness perhaps in the medium-range lens of the single exposure reflex camera. The multi viewpoint representations of Eastern miniatures, on the other hand, may belong to a world of intellectual experience, a unique expression of virtual reality, that is presently becoming more and more a part of our lives with the advent of the microchips.