Some Backfill -- Istanbul Last Week
Trip Start
Feb 08, 2008
1
80
125
Trip End
Sep 11, 2009
Canakkale,
Turkish Aegean Coast,
Turkey
Saturday, November 22, 2008
We met in Taksim Square, checked into a near-by hotel, then hit Istiklal Caddesi. That's the main pedestrian drag in Istanbul. In a Yogi Berra frame of mind I thought, Everybody in the world who is not someplace else is there. It seems that any time day or night there are millions of people from all over the world are sauntering along; 60% walking one direction and 60% walking in the other direction. After a meal in one of the many of the side street eateries, mostly G. "shopped," while I stood by. Earlier I had nabbed a couple of books at the really fine Pandora Bookshop. (Interestingly, Lonely Planet doesn't give Pandora a mention; yet I have found there the best selection of English language books on all subjects
Istanbul: Istiklal Caddesi at Night
. My taste runs to history. http://www.turkeytravelplanner.com/go/Istanbul/Shopping/bookshops/pandora.html).But Saturday was the day of our goal for the rendezvous--an exhibit of works by the Spanish artist Salvador Dali. Dali is my favorite artist. Most people--I say most--perhaps view him as some sort of nut case. He certainly did project a bizarre public persona. And the fact that much of his career was devoted to Surrealism (in the aftermath of Freudian investigations of the subconscious) meant that much of his work is equally bizarre. But, if you can get beyond that, and a lot of the other fluff, you might begin to appreciate what a singular, monumental genius he was.
I copied one note from the exhibit that addresses his tremendous intellect. I'm not an artist, nor qualified to be called even a "painter." But I have painted some. I swoon when I look closely at his work, and physically ache at the beauty of it. I believe there is nothing in the visual craft that he could not do. And he did everything. His range of media, his skill and craftsmanship at it all; his creative imagination, there seems no limit nor end to it. I have books and books on Dali. I have been to the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida (http://www.salvadordalimuseum.org/visit/overview.html); seen an exhibit of his work in London; seen his own museum in Figueres, Spain (http://www.salvador-dali.org/en_index.html
Exhibit Poster
. This one is good; it cycles through many pictures). And every time, when I might think I have seen all there is to be seen by his hand, there is always something more. We see many photos of him in his nutty-looking public persona. When did he have the time to be so prolific!? To create so much stuff. And be so good at it! All.But in the end, I like to say, He did the work. He didn't have a school of students crafting his concepts. He did the work. My favorite picture is of him painting one of his "monumental" canvases, which now hangs in the St. Petersburg Dali Museum.
In the Istanbul, Sabanci Museum exhibit I saw things that I have seen in books, but did not see in the Figueres museum when I was there. Of particular interest to me were his later experiments in creating three dimensional images--paintings. Five stereo paintings and one drawing were on exhibit in Istanbul. Four of the paintings and one drawing are stereo images which need to be viewed with a split mirror device. A single flat painting--the one with the boy and the blue spheres--can be seen in three dimensions . . . . if you can look at it cross-eyed and merge the two images. (I have practiced a lot by crossing my eyes to view stereo 3D images sent back from a couple of our robots on Mars). It's not great, but you can see separation and volume, especially of the boy' head. If not, you can get an idea of the view displacement necessary by just noting the different relations between the two left arms and the rock in the background. Try to imagine the intellect, set-up and craftsmanship to pull that off!
G. returned to Ankara in the late afternoon. I stayed another night in Istanbul, at a different lodgement, then caught a 7am ferry to Bandirma to the west. That takes two hours. A mini-bus takes one from the ferry dock to the main bus station (otogar). It's another two or three hours by bus to Canakkale; then another mini-bus to the village of Tevfikiye.
