Süleyman Seyyid Bey (1842,

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

- 1913, Istanbul) was a painter and art teacher from the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

. He is primarily known for his

still-life A still life (: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or human-made (drinking glasses, books, ...

s. He taught art in military schools for 36 years and is considered to be a member of the first generation of modern Turkish painters in the Ottoman Empire.

Early life

Süleyman Seyyid was born in Istanbul, Turkey in 1842 to a noble Anatolian family. His father was Haci Ismail Efendi, one of the notables of Anatolian Maltepesi. His grandfather, after whom he was named, was a well-known master craftsman who specialized in

mother-of-pearl Nacre ( , ), also known as mother-of-pearl, is an organicinorganic composite material produced by some molluscs as an inner shell layer. It is also the material of which pearls are composed. It is strong, resilient, and iridescent. Nacre is ...

inlays Inlay covers a range of techniques in sculpture and the decorative arts for inserting pieces of contrasting, often colored materials into depressions in a base object to form Ornament (art), ornament or pictures that normally are flush with th ...

. Süleyman Seyyid lived a pious lifestyle, valuing modesty and refuting material rewards and possessions. As a child, Süleyman Seyyid used the name Esseyid Suleiman. However, after completing his primary education and later studies at the

Turkish Military Academy The Turkish Military Academy () or as it is known historically and popularly Harbiye is a four-year co-educational military academy and part of the National Defense University (Turkey), National Defence University. It is located in the cent ...

,Brief biography with more paintings
@ Tarih Notlari. he went by Seyyid. At school, his charcoal sketches and watercolor paintings caught the attention of one of his teachers, Giovanni Schranz (1794-1882), a Maltese painter who was visiting Istanbul at the time. Schranz encouraged Seyyid to pursue art as a career path.

Career

After graduating from the Turkish Military Academy as a lieutenant in 1862, Süleyman Seyyid traveled to Paris to attend a special school established for Turkish students called the Ottoman School in Paris. After his time at that school, he later studied at the

École des Beaux Arts École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * Éco ...

in Paris, France in the studios of

Alexandre Cabanel Alexandre Cabanel (; 28 September 1823 – 23 January 1889) was a French Painting, painter. He painted historical, classical and religious subjects in the Academic art, academic style. He was also well known as a portrait painter. He was Napoleon ...

Brief biography
@ Sanalmüze. for about 8 years. There he learned integral skills in representing spatial and figural volume. Süleyman Seyyid had great success with his paintings and received an award for his paintings of lilacs. He later became well known in Turkey for his artistic abilities and technical proficiency.A New World of Art. (2011). In W.M. Shaw (Ed.). ''Ottoman Painting: Reflections of Western Art from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic'' (pp. 79–106). London: I.B.Tauris. Retrieved December 6, 2022, from After working in Rome for about a year, he returned to Istanbul in 1871 to paint and to bring the influence of his Parisian teachers to Turkey. Süleyman Seyyid became an art teacher at both the military and medical academies with hopes to instill some more knowledge of the arts among the working professionals. As he was one of the first Ottoman Turkish artists to be educated in Paris, Süleyman Seyyid is credited with bringing Western-style painting and its techniques to the Ottoman Empire. Turkish art historians have credited such artists as bringing the “true” Western practices learned directly at the Parisian academies, as opposed to past imitations. He first started out teaching French at the Military Academy. After the death of the school's painting teacher, Abraham Bey, Süleyman Seyyid was appointed as the new painting teacher at the school. Together with

Şeker Ahmet Paşa Şeker is a Turkish surname. Notable people with the surname include: Given name * Şeker Ahmet Paşa, Turkish painter Surname * Alişan Şeker (born 1986), Turkish footballer * Busem Şeker (born 1998), Turkish-German women's footballer * Reyh ...

, another returning artist from Paris, they taught painting to the students at the military academy. Due to growing disagreements between Süleyman Seyyid and

, Seyyid resigned from the teaching position in 1880. Seyyid next went to teach at the

Kuleli Military High School Kuleli Military High School was the oldest military high school in Turkey, located in Çengelköy, Istanbul, on the Asian shore of the Bosphorus strait. It was founded on 21 September 1845, by Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid I. After the 2016 Turkish ...

in 1880. Four years later, in 1884, he was repositioned to the military medical school as a painting teacher and ended up teaching there for the next 26 years until 1910. His teaching style emphasized geometry and perspective construction, as expressed in his 880-page unpublished illustrated work called “The Science of Perspective” (''Fenn-i Menazir''). Additionally, he was known for entertaining and amusing his students with his oppositional ideas during their drawing and painting classes. As Süleyman Seyyid had taught at military schools for a total of 36 years, he rose to the rank of Colonel (

Miralay ''Miralay'' or ''Mîr-i alay'' (Gendarmerie: ''Alaybeyi'') was a military rank of the Ottoman Army and Navy. The modern Turkish equivalent is ''Albay'', meaning Colonel. ''Miralay'' is a compound word composed of '' Mir'' (commander) and ''Ala ...

) in 1910 and became a very well known artist among officers, doctors, and other professionals. During those 36 years, he organized exhibitions with the intention to familiarize the Ottoman public with Western styles of painting. He gave French language and painting lessons to children of more wealthy families, and wrote articles on art for ''Istikbal'' and Ottoman newspapers.

Later life

After he retired with the rank of Colonel (

) in 1910, he moved to

Sarıyer Sarıyer () is a municipality and Districts of Turkey, district of Istanbul Province, Istanbul Province, Turkey. Its area is 177 km2 and its population is 350,454 (2022). It is on the northeastern part of Istanbul's European side. Sarıyer al ...

, the northernmost district of Istanbul, Turkey. An intensely spiritual man, he apparently gave away most of his works and never received any financial benefits from them while he was alive. Süleyman Seyyid died on September 23, 1913, in Istanbul, Turkey at the age of 71. He was buried in the Ortaçeşme cemetery in

, Turkey. As he was never fond of material things and didn't earn money for his paintings, it is uncertain as to how many paintings he did in his lifetime, however it is said that he had about 200 works. It is possible to find his pieces in the halls of old families that have been in Istanbul for generations, and there are very few in museums.

Work

Süleyman Seyyid was most commonly known for his still-life paintings which appeared in the genre of Western traditional paintings, but also offered political statements regarding the rapid modernization of the world. In contrast to the Orientalist painters at this time, Süleyman Seyyid's pieces included all natural objects such as oranges, lilacs, figs, watermelon, and tulips. All elements were common parts of the Ottoman experience with nature. Specifically, he chose elements from

Üsküdar Üsküdar () is a municipality and district of Istanbul Province, Turkey. Its area is 35 km2, and its population is 524,452 (2022). It is a large and densely populated district on the Anatolian (Asian) shore of the Bosphorus. It is border ...

, a densely populated district of Istanbul, Turkey where he found many subjects as a source of beauty. Additional places he found such beauty in were Çamlıca, Kısıklı, Bulgurlu, Hekimbaşı, Dudullu, Kayışdağı, Alemdağ, and Fenerbahçe. His best known piece of artwork is his still-life painting of a peeled and segmented orange. It is classified under the theme of

vanitas ''Vanitas'' is a genre of symbolizing the temporality, transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death, and thus the vanity of ambition and all worldly desires. The paintings involved still life imagery of transitory i ...

adopted from the West. He “applied European painting techniques to subjects that were often already part of the Ottoman culture of images.” Essentially he translated existing Ottoman visual techniques and strategies into a new form. His painting, “Still Life with Orange”, is now on display in the Ankara Painting and Sculpture Museum Collection. It is a masterpiece among the many works of Süleyman Seyyid. His artistic choices to emphasize objects such as fruit and flowers, which were already common among Ottoman tile and fabric traditions, in conjunction with his spatial and lighting techniques from Western painting traditions caused his work to stand out. It stood out in a way that suggested a political viewpoint putting emphasis on positivism, but also felt grounded in traditional Ottoman traditions.

References

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