LEGEND

'LEGEND'

Κωνσταντινούπολη 

I was brought up to think of Istanbul as Constantinoupoli Constantine's great City ( I Polis, H Πόλις, η Πόλη) and the lighthouse of Greek civilization. As I was growing up, the history and the geography of my adolescence revolved around the loss of that city. The 'City' was and is, however, above all else the birthplace of my father. 

The work I present here is not about possession, nationalism, or any kind of political propaganda. The 'City' is at peace, and that is enough. I have created a map that speaks to me.  It is a map of reconciliation with the past. An exercise in examining the history of a place and of making a personal homage. I hope others will also connect with this viewpoint and with my particular map of the City. 

I had been meaning to make a sort of map of Istanbul/Constantinople for some time, but life got in the way, as well as other ideas and distractions. I was also somewhat daunted by the prospect. The modern City is a large conglomeration of buildings and monuments jumbled up in a way that makes it difficult to see and understand its structure and shape. In researching the project in the past (looking at maps, historical documents, and reconstructions) I was overwhelmed not only by the diversity of the material, personal interpretations of historical monuments and so on. The complexity was visual but also emotional. 

The finished 'legend' of the map, which gave me what I think is the right title for this piece. The actual map will be printed on A1 Fabriano and painted by hand.  I expect to make around 10 hand painted maps in colour and twenty black and white prints as a separate edition. 

Please let me know of any issues with copyright with the pictures shown after the blog post and also if the images are not loading correctly.  Third party images shown are used as illustrations of my process, being some of the reference material I used to base drawings which in essence are not direct copies. Third party images, therefore, should not be reproduced elsewhere.  If anyone wishes material to be removed under copyright laws, I will do so immediately. Thank you.

Below are shown the original A1 pen and ink drawing and one trial version of the map in colour. 

                               The map will be available as a limited edition, hand-painted print in November 2018.

It is no wonder that I had swimming in my mind ideas of the greatness of Byzantine Greek culture, loss, war, displacement, foreign threat and the idea of an eternal foe that had dispossessed us from 'our' nation's spiritual capital. It is also no wonder that Constantinople would play such a large part in a lot of the symbolism that can be seen in my printed work, in particular. Thinking about it retrospectively, Byzantine culture as I thought I understood it surfaced in my degree show work a long time ago and has played a part in subsequent paintings and prints ever since. Having said that, I have always rather skirted around the idea of that City and its symbolism.  I do not really think that I explored it in any real sense until I came across seven precious pages of my father's memoirs of his early childhood in Constantinople.  He describes the areas of the city, mostly using names and places that can still be traced today, over 100 years later. 

                                              

Three years ago, I wrote a little book entitled 'Traces' in which I use the text and further research to create a kind of speculative account of some of my father's and our family's life. The book is more of a sentimental and healing retelling of a story I wish I knew better, or at least knew as well as I 'feel' it. I lost my father relatively young and there are so, so many things that are left unanswered.  This time, I still went back to the seven pages and again, I was surprised at how much information I could glean from these relatively few lines.

One thing that comes through from his writings is a sense that things happened, but that it was because of people's 'humanity' not because of their ethnic or religious affiliations. I think my father's stories of a multicultural Istanbul affected me much more than I realised. They filled me with a kind of romanticism about a plural society where diversity and harmony were not mutually exclusive.  I say this despite the fact that his writing includes the catastrophe of war, the displacement of Christians from Asia Minor and the awareness of himself as a displaced person. It is a strange anomaly perhaps, that he never spoke of the Turkish people with animosity, quite the contrary in fact. Even in the brief life history he wrote in his later years, he speaks with a kind of stoicism that has perhaps been lost in our modern era.  Hardships and loss are described dispassionately, matter-of-fact with a kind of 'it could be worse'  in metaphorical parentheses. One of the most telling sentences has to do with describing real hunger and the constant need to secure the next meal; about being able to eat well and feel that everything was going to be alright. 

But as usual, when I start to think about the Polis, (The City/Constantinople)  I digress, meander, and get lost. So back to the drawing of the map. Well, one thing that became apparent was that if I spent another three years planning (which I probably would need to get this right) it just would not happen.  So I decided to jump right in and identify some important landmarks.  But, where do you start? Whose landmarks? What is important to whom? Was the map to be a personal 'journey' through the city? Was it going to trace my father's early years and the buildings and places he would have seen?

I was determined that I would represent all religions and try and bring back something of the multifaith past of Istanbul. So I started with  Agia Sophia, possibly the most important church in Greek consciousness and currently a museum. It was and is a complex structure and it took much longer than expected to understand it, before attempting to draw it. Then once I had drawn it, it started to feel like I was trying to somehow Hellenise the city. I decided that I needed some balance and so I started to draw the Blue Mosque. (Sultan Ahmed Mosque).  It was at that point that I started to reflect more on my attitude towards this map and the city. It was the incidental photographs seen on Google Earth of the improvements to some of the historic monuments.  It was the weight of all the history that has elapsed since the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and it was the inevitability that Greek and Turkish nationalism had and still has on those who are perceived as a threat.  I have, I confess, read a lot about the displacement of the Greek population of Istanbul.  As recently as 1955, a major event caused untold damage to property and the resulting murders and attacks and causing another exodus of people to Greece USA and Australia.

One could say that leaving 200,000 Greeks in Istanbul who were in essence excluded by the Treaty of Lausanne that defined the exchange of populations, was a problem waiting to erupt.  (The event known to Greeks as the Great Catastrophe' saw all Christians that were classed as 'Greek' and all Muslims that were classed as 'Turks' being respectively relocated to their 'mother' country. Hundreds of thousands had not ever even visited their 'motherland'). The suffering on both sides was immense.

I decided to just start and so I did. It was not easy, and predictably I thought about giving up several times. Also predictably, I did not. I am glad that I persisted. A journey can start with a map, or a map can be the result of a journey. I will leave the work to speak for itself and will be really happy when I am finally screen-printing the large versions. I can see the maps themselves making many journeys around the globe, and that fills me with a sense of happiness and also, for now, closure. 

Below are some of my references, which I have used as starting points.  Please let me know if you own the copyright and I will immediately accredit you, or remove the images from the blog. Thank you.

Istanbul (UK: /ˌɪstænˈbʊl/, /-ˈbuːl/ or US: /-stɑːn-/ or /ˈɪstənbʊl/;^[6][7][8] Turkish: İstanbul [isˈtanbuɫ] ( listen)), historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople, is the most populous city in Turkey and the country's economic, cultural, and historic center. Istanbul is a transcontinental city in Eurasia, straddling the Bosporus Strait (which separates Europe and Asia) between the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea. Its commercial and historical center lies on the European side and about a third of its population lives on the Asian side.^[9] The city is the administrative center of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (coterminous with Istanbul Province), both hosting a population of around 15 million residents. ^[3] Istanbul is one of the world's most populous cities and ranks as the world's 5th-largest city proper and the largest European city. Istanbul is viewed as a bridge between the East and West.

Founded under the name of Byzantion (Βυζάντιον) on the Sarayburnu promontory around 660 BCE, the city grew in size and influence, having become one of the most important cities in history. After its reestablishment as Constantinople in 330 CE, it served as an imperial capital for almost 16 centuries, during the Roman/Byzantine (330–1204 and 1261–1453), the Latin (1204–1261), and the Ottoman (1453–1922) empires.^[10] It was instrumental in the advancement of Christianity during Roman and Byzantine times before the Ottomans conquered the city in 1453 CE and transformed it into an Islamic stronghold and the seat of the Ottoman Caliphate.^[11]

On 29 May 1453, after an eight-week siege (during which the last Roman emperor, Constantine XI, was killed), Sultan Mehmed II "the Conqueror" captured Constantinople and declared it the new capital of the Ottoman Empire. Hours later, the sultan rode to the Hagia Sophia and summoned an imam to proclaim the Islamic creed, converting the grand cathedral into an imperial mosque due to the city's refusal to surrender peacefully.^[69] Mehmed declared himself as the new "Kaysar-i Rûm" (the Ottoman Turkish equivalent of Caesar of Rome) and the Ottoman state was reorganized into an empire.^[70]

From Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istanbul#Rise_and_fall_of_Constantinople_and_the_Byzantine_Empire

It's Istanbul, not Constantinople?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNUsOaB5V2c