This thesis proposes an anti-Orientalist reading of the portrait of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror (r. 1451-1481) by Gentile Bellini. The artist's work is analysed in the context of the Venetian Renaissance and the status of the visual arts in the Ottoman Empire. Mehmed's patronage of Italian artists, who created medallic and pictorial portraits of the sovereign, is considered together with the local translation of conventions enabled by early modern cross-cultural encounters. The Western political and intellectual climate following the conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed in 1453 is examined and, in particular, the secularising crusade literature produced by humanist scholars. Covert efforts to incorporate the Turks within the boundaries of civilised society coexisted with the conventional derogatory anti-Turkish propaganda. Bellini's portrait is seen as an attempt to portray the sultan as a member of the Venetian aristocracy. The historiographical record of modern academic scholarship in the disciplines of history and art history exploring these cross-cultural exchanges is set in a framework that explores the role of Edward Said's Orientalism in light of recent developments.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.83150 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Stamoulos, Eva |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of Art History and Communication Studies.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002227088, proquestno: AAIMR12768, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
Page generated in 0.0019 seconds