Why was it that depicting the world through the eyes of the artist seen as a terrible act and a violation against the Koran?
I think the overriding norm, in one sense, was the concept of being humble. For instance, Master Osman tells the reader that accepting the fate of never reaching the sublime of the old masters makes life easier. This rationale is directly connected to the concept of “modesty.” We learn that modesty is “such a highly prized virtue in our part of the world.” On the other hand, we have the norm that a genuine artist has an instinctive desire to draw what’s forbidden. Therefore, I observed many conflicting normative universes at work.
There was a binary battle between the Frankish infidels and the miniaturists in Istanbul. Master Osman and the traditionalist believed that making use of the methods of the Franks would take away from the focus on “ornamentation and intricate design and more on straightforward representation.” This is what the Glorious Koran forbids. In the Chapter called “We Two Dervishes” I found the sin of the Frank. “He was committing the error of looking at the world with his naked eye and rendering what he saw.”
Conversely, Master Osman asks the question to Black “what can we learn from the fact that two miniaturists had created the same picture without having seen each other’s work?” The answer was “to paint is to remember.” If Allah gave all the uniqueness to the world and its beauty the duty of illustrators is to remember the magnificence that Allah beheld and left to us and depict life through Allah’s pureness. “The greatest masters in each generation of painters, expending their lives and toiling until blind, strove with great effort and inspiration to attain and record the wondrous dream that Allah commanded us to see.” In addition, Butterfly and Stork debate the dilemma whether a “true” painter draws what he sees or what Allah sees. Butterfly notes that Allah certainly sees everything we see, but Allah does not perceive it the way we do. However, I think Stork comes out with the better of the argument when he states that “If falls to us to believe in Allah and to depict only what He reveals to us, not what He conceals.”
Olive tells us that his paintings reveal what the mind, not the eye, sees. But, painting is a feast for the eyes. Therefore, Olive combines both of these observations and comments that: (1) Painting brings to life what the mind sees, as a feast for the eyes; (2) What the eye sees in the world enters the painting to the degree that it serves the mind; and (3) Consequently, beauty is the eye discovering in our world what the mind already knows. Olive was desperate to find his own personal characteristics’ or style in his paintings. When Black informs Olive that Master Osman told him that “there among the great works of the old masters he showed me how you had a style.” “He taught me how the hidden fault of style isn’t something the artist selects of his own volition, but is determined by the artist’s past and his forgotten memories.”
The final picture in the Secret Book revealed the transgressions and the depiction of reality through the eyes of Olive. Objects weren’t depicted according to their importance in Allah’s mind, but as they appeared to the naked eye. Additionally, the biggest sin of all was the depiction of Our Sultan’s picture as large as life and his face in all its detail. A portrait of ones self is seen as a direction violation of the virtue of modesty. Especially, with ones picture as the center of the world is in direct violation of the principles of the Koran and the norms Master Osman.
Well said!
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