A Cultural Tour of Istanbul, The place the Artwork and Historical past of Three Nice Empires Come Collectively

Imag­ine a grand tour of Euro­pean muse­ums, and a good few des­ti­na­tions come proper to thoughts: the Rijksmu­se­um, the Pra­do, the Uffizi Gallery, the Lou­vre. These insti­tu­tions alone may take years to expe­ri­ence ful­ly, however it will be an incom­plete jour­ney that did­n’t ven­ture far­ther east — a lot far­ther east, within the view of Nice Artwork Defined cre­ator James Payne. In his lat­est Nice Artwork Cities video, he makes the case for Istan­bul, adduc­ing such each artis­ti­cal­ly and his­tor­i­cal­ly wealthy websites because the İst­anb­ul Archae­o­log­i­cal Muse­um, the Basil­i­ca Cis­tern, the Zeyrek Çinili Hamam, Istan­bul Mod­ern, and naturally — as pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured right here on Open Cul­ture — the unig­nor­ready Hagia Sophia.

Payne intro­duces Istan­bul as hav­ing been “the cap­i­tal of three nice empires, Roman, Byzan­tine, and Ottoman.” Within the con­ti­nent-strad­dling metrop­o­lis as it’s right now, “each historical and mod­ern artwork mix ele­ments from Europe, Asia, and the Mid­dle East, replicate­ing its geo­graph­i­cal and his­tor­i­cal posi­tion­ing as a bridge between the East and the West.”

The works on dis­play within the metropolis con­sti­tute “a visu­al embod­i­ment of its com­plex his­to­ry,” from the Hel­lenis­tic to the Roman to the Islam­ic to the kinds and media of the twen­ti­eth and twen­ty-first cen­turies, with all of which “mod­ern-day Turkey is now cre­at­ing its personal artis­tic lega­cy.”

That lega­cy can also be deeply root­ed up to now. Vis­it the Archae­o­log­i­cal Muse­um and you’ll see the Alexan­der Sar­coph­a­gus from the fourth cen­tu­ry BC, whose aston­ish­ing­ly detailed carv­ings embody “the one exist­ing depic­tion of Alexan­der the Nice cre­at­ed dur­ing his life­time.” The beneath­floor Basil­i­ca Cis­tern, constructed within the sixth cen­tu­ry, counts as a lot as a large-scale work of Byzan­tine artwork because it does a large-scale work of Byzan­tine engi­neer­ing. From there, it’s a brief tram trip on the Gala­ta Bridge throughout the Gold­en Horn to the brand-new, Ren­zo Piano-designed Istan­bul Mod­ern, which has paint­ings by Cihat Burak, Fahrel­nis­sa Zeid, Bedri Baykam. You might not know these names now, however for those who view their work within the distinctive cul­tur­al con­textual content of Istan­bul — during which so many eras and civ­i­liza­tions are man­i­fest — you’ll nev­er for­get them.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Historical World Involves Life in an Ani­ma­tion Fea­tur­ing Istanbul’s Islam­ic, Ottoman, Greek & Byzan­tine Artwork

Istan­bul Cap­tured in Beau­ti­ful Col­or Photos from 1890: The Hagia Sophia, Prime­ka­ki Palace’s Impe­r­i­al Gate & Extra

Watch Dig­i­tal Dancers Elec­tri­fy the Streets of Istan­bul

An Intro­duc­tion to Hagia Sophia: After 85 Years as a Muse­um, It’s Set to Turn into a Mosque Once more

How Lon­dini­um Turned Lon­don, Lute­tia Turned Paris, and Oth­er Roman Cities Bought Their Mod­ern Names

Nice Artwork Cities: Vis­it the Fas­ci­nat­ing, Much less­er-Identified Muse­ums of Lon­don & Paris

Based mostly in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His initiatives embody the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the ebook The State­much less Metropolis: a Stroll by Twenty first-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video collection The Metropolis in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­ebook.