Yıllar yılı adetimizdir, her sene yeni yıla yaklaşırken bir tebrik resmi hazırlar, yakınlara, arkadaşlara göndeririz. Bu senekinin içeriği, eleştirici bir blog olan Tashlık için uygun olduğu için burada da yayınlamaya karar verdim.
Sebastian Brandt'ın 1494'de yayınlanan "Deliler Gemisi"'nden bir ahşap oyma baskı.
Bu geleneğe bir katkıda bulunmayı hep istemişimdir; insanoğlunun davranışları zaten bol bol fırsat veriyor! Ama bu son yıllarda Türkiye'de yaşayıp olan bitene şahit olmak, insanların tepkilerini, tepkisizliklerini, küçük hesaplarını, boş özentilerini görmek beni harekete geçirdi. Zaten "ilerliyoruz" derken bir yandan da Ortaçağ'a dönmüyor muyuz? Bindik bir alamete, gidiyoruz kıyamete! Sefalı seyrüseferler olsun!!!
2013 yeni yıl resmim.
My new years' greeting for 2013.
ENGLISH
It has become something of a tradition with us to make an illustration for the holiday season and to send it out to friends and relatives. The theme I selected for this year fits this blog quite well, so I decided to share it here, to conclude one year of folly and in anticipation of another.
The theme of "The Ship of Fools" (Stultifera Navis) has been with us since the middle ages, and is an allegory of the folly of Man, slave to His vanity, greed and petty ambitions, blithely unaware of the catastrophic direction towards which He is going. This theme has been repeatedly re-interpreted in Western art and literature.
Woodcut from Sebastian Brandt's "Ship of Fools".(Daß Narrenschyff ad Narragoniam).
The theme of "The Ship of Fools" (Stultifera Navis) has been with us since the middle ages, and is an allegory of the folly of Man, slave to His vanity, greed and petty ambitions, blithely unaware of the catastrophic direction towards which He is going. This theme has been repeatedly re-interpreted in Western art and literature.
Woodcut from Sebastian Brandt's "Ship of Fools".(Daß Narrenschyff ad Narragoniam).
"The Ship of Fools" as interpreted by Hieronymous Bosch, between 1490-1500.
A more recent interpretation with an old flavor: "The Ship of Fools" in Nürnberg, by Jürgen Weber, from between 1984-87.
I have always wanted to make my own small contribution to the tradition, and there is plenty in the world of today to inspire an artist. In the last few years, my own country has been proving itself more and more deserving of the "Ship of Fools" treatment, reaching particularly prodigious heights in the last year, and with promise of more in the next. So I decided I'd go ahead and do it, this might be my last chance before the whole thing capsizes!
On my version of "The Ship of Fools", almost all examples are universal, though taken from specific Turkish contexts. The Turkish caption Deliye Her Yıl Bayram ("For the fool, every year is a festivity") is a derivation of the common saying Deliye Her Gün Bayram ("For the fool, every day is a festivity"). The name Alamet, roughly "Monstrous Thing", alludes to the popular expression "We've boarded a monstrosity, and are all riding to Doomsday!" (Bindik bir alamete, gidiyoruz kıyamete!) The dangling lightbulb at the prow alludes to the AKP, the ruling party, which has a lightbulb for an emblem; (If it comes loose from its hook, it will drop into salt water, an excellent conductor of electricity!) A patriotic demonstration is put down by the police, the shady underground rubs shoulders with wealth and power. Accusations, counter-accusations and outright slander are represented by the dirty laundry hanging overhead, football fans for whom nothing else matters chant their usual discordant cheers and slogans, the veiled women shrouded in black and the half-naked bimbos represent the very real extremes in Turkish society today. Little girls with headscarves peering through the crowd display the joys of fundamentalist Islamist education, a nuclear reactor, standing for several to be built and operated for most of their operational lives by the Russians, churns radioactive smoke behind the sail, but no fear- the loudspeaker on the mast is ready to blare the Muezzin's call to prayer, assuring all will be well! Opposing forces vie for control of the rudder, a politician (a prime minister?) shouts nonsense into the microphones, an airheaded bride and groom dance in a wedding that probably cost all their parents' savings- (I'll give them six months), some nitwit with more money than taste watches a regular 4:3 broadcast on a 16:9 widescreen TV (you see that a lot and it's my pet hate). Barely above the waterline are portholes opening to the cells of the crowded prisons- perhaps Silivri? (Check out the next article down!). Just above them, boot on the railing, a militant insurgent brandishes his Kalashnikov. Someone is defecating into the already polluted sea (we live not too far from a creek that until recently was an open sewer and is now only a little less fetid!) while a bit further astern someone else is fishing from the same waters. Between the two, a young derelict sniffs paint thinner from a paper bag. The lifesaver dangling from the back is padlocked, to make sure no one steals it. (I remember having seen lifevests locked in large chests in Istanbul's ferries! I don't see it now, but it is representative of something!)
Enjoy the Holiday Season, you might as well!
And keep hoping for a safe harbor for the "Ship of Fools"!
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