The Turk And Islam In The Western Eye 1450-1750

This collection of essays explores the representation of Ottoman Turks in Western art from 1450 to 1750. The essays examine specific images and their contexts, revealing how the figure of the Turk was interpreted and used to reflect Western needs, anxieties, and agendas. The essays also show how images were transmitted across national boundaries and centuries, resulting in a multiplicity of interpretations. Despite inaccuracies and anachronisms, the figure of the Turk became a significant presence in various forms of art during this time period.

Unprecedented in its range - extending from Venice to the New World and from the Holy Roman Empire to the Ottoman Empire - this collection probes the place that the Ottoman Turks occupied in the Western imaginaire, and the ways in which this occupation expressed itself in the visual arts. Individual essays in this volume examine specific images or groups of images, problematizing the 'truths' they present and analyzing the contexts that shape the presentation of Ottoman or Islamic subject matter in European art. The contributors trace the transmission of early modern images and representations across national boundaries and across centuries to show how, through processes of translation that often involved multiple stages, the figure of the Turk (and by extension that of the Muslim) underwent a multiplicity of interpretations that reflect and reveal Western needs, anxieties and agendas. The essays reveal how anachronisms and inaccuracies mingled with careful detail to produce a Turk, a figure which became a presence to reckon with in painting, sculpture, tapestry and printmaking.