How the Russian ambassador made an Italian the most beloved artist in Turkey

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Many Europeans have avidly painted the East. But their East is naked women in harems and baths. The Italian Fausto Zonaro has a completely different vision of the topic. This is a bazaar, veils, city streets and people's faces. Zonaro lived in Turkey and painted for her last sultan.

The boy who wanted to be an artist

Fausto was born into a family of stonemasons. Generation after generation, his ancestors had worked on construction sites, and his son, Zonaro Sr. was going to secure the same career. But the boy wanted to paint more than anything else. And … no scandal. His father, who loved him dearly, agreed. Fausto began to go to study every day at a school located in a nearby town - 12 kilometers away. To make learning not so ruinous for the family, he walked, hanging his boots around his neck so that they would not wash. So my father had to spend only on paints and paper.

The boy was gifted. It became clear that painting was his vocation. After college, he entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Verona. He was helped by a philanthropist, noblewoman Stefania Omboni, who supported many young talents from the hinterland. The course in which Fausto studied can be called golden - many of the students later became famous artists.

Artist Zonaro: one of hundreds

They receive education in order to work later. There was no vacancy for a great or outstanding artist in the newspapers, and Zonaro opened his own drawing school, leaving Verona for Venice. He himself wrote a lot, trying to find his own style at the junction of the sleek lines of Italian realism and the "sloppy" French impressionism.

I drew everything I saw. Genre scenes from the streets, from workshops and shops; children, girls, boys, men, women, old people; houses, walls, canals, pavements. Such paintings were scattered among tourists like hot cakes, and all Venetian artists painted them almost by conveyor belt method. Zonaro was a class higher than most of his colleagues, exhibited a lot at home and abroad, received critical acclaim, but tourists would still not distinguish his canvases from dozens of other paintings for sale with the same boys, flower girls, shopkeepers and idle young ladies.

At his school, he met a girl named Elisabetta Pante. Young people fell in love, got married and went to Paris - it was there that Fausto met with the work of the Impressionists. Eliza did not become an artist, but she became a good photographer.

Duke Paolo Camerini was very supportive of Zonaro, both buying up his paintings and making large orders, for example, for several pastel landscapes for decorating the living room. In general, Zonaro's ability to paint expressive landscapes played into the hands of his descendants. He managed to make several paintings depicting Pendino, one of the oldest and most disadvantaged areas of Naples, several years before it was demolished. In general, everything went to the fact that in the history of Zonaro will remain as one of the many singers in Italy. But the case in the person of the Russian ambassador to Turkey changed everything.

Streets of Istanbul and the Sultan's palace

In 1892, Fausto and his family moved to Istanbul, feeling that Italy was turning sour. My wife and children liked the new place, and the artist himself revived. As always, he immediately fell in love with the streets of the new city. Canvas after canvas was filled with figures of people who make up the life of these streets. There were not many European artists in Turkey, so when Russian Ambassador Nelidov needed to order a painting, he turned to Zonaro.

The painting was supposed to be a gift to Sultan Abdul Hamid. On it, at the request of the customer, Zonaro depicted Turkish cavalrymen passing across the bridge under the admiring glances of the townspeople. The sultan liked the canvas immensely, and in 1896 Zonaro was invited to the position of court painter.

Later, after the coup, Fausto will be remembered as the artist of the last sultan of Turkey. But then nothing seemed to portend a sad fate for the Sultan, and Zonaro painted Abdul Hamid and his family, capturing happy life, blossoming faces. And, of course, in parallel he painted streets, streets, streets - full of bearded men and women in headscarves. No one has done so much to leave a portrait of Turkey itself at the turn of the century, as this Italian. It is not surprising that the Turks still adore him.

In Istanbul, Zonaro continued to train the next generation of painters. Among his students is the famous Turkish artist Mihri Myushfik Khanym. Unfortunately, after the 1909 coup, Zonaro no longer found a place for himself in Istanbul. In Italy, he was looking for a place similar to the city, which he managed to love with all his heart, and settled in San Remo. Zonaro lived in San Remo until the end of his life. His paintings still excite the viewer, and at world auctions they are estimated at hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Frankly, his life was much more successful than another famous orientalist artist, Russian genius, whom the French did not give the Nobel Prize - Vasily Vereshchagin.