Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'ndan Türkiye
Cumhuriyeti'ne Batı Sanatının Yansımaları
 
Wendy M. K. Shaw's book, titled "Ottoman Painting: Reflections of Western Art from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic," has been released by Bozlu Sanat Yayınları. This book, a revised edition of her work "Ottoman Painting: Reflections of Western Art from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic," originally published in London in 2011, features color images for which permissions were obtained from relevant collections. The book, edited by Ömer Faruk Şerifoğlu, has been translated from English to Turkish by Zeynep Şen.
Wendy M. K. Shaw traces the development of Turkish painting from the Ottoman Empire to the early years of the Republic, emphasizing that in the Ottoman Empire, artistic practice reflected modernity not as a reflection of an original form developed by the West but as a given universal discourse. While Ottoman artists were not avant-garde in the artistic sense, Shaw argues that their original political discourse and ideology, influenced by positivism theories developed by Auguste Comte, not through Saint Simon in the context of Turkish ideology, became a source of inspiration influencing reform in Turkish modernism. Therefore, it's not surprising that the goal of Ottoman artists was to change the discourse of society through their artistic styles, not through innovation, as summarized in the statement: "Bu yüzden Osmanlı sanatçılarının emelinin, sanat tartışmasını inovasyonla değil de toplumun tartışmalarını sanatsal stilleri kullanarak değiştirmek olması şaşırtıcı değildi."
Shaw provides original interpretations and evaluations of the artistic journeys and works of leading figures in Turkish art such as Osman Hamdi Bey, Şeker Ahmet Paşa, Halife Abdülmecid Efendi, Halil Paşa, Hoca Ali Rıza, Ömer Adil, Avni Lifij, Mehmet Ruhi, Nazmi Ziya, Mihri Hanım, Müfide Kadri, and Hale Asaf. She concludes her book, which addresses the foundational issue of Turkish painting finding its own language starting with the Western model during the Ottoman period, with the statement: "This book is not aimed at providing a definitive and undisputed translation of Western art into the Ottoman Empire, but rather at proposing how this art can be discussed by considering all its richness through the implications of the vocabulary. It is written with the aim of providing a starting point for artists to continue developing their art and establishing both local and global relationships with audiences in the future."