Want to see what Istanbul looked like over a hundred years ago? Go to the Pella Art Museum, where the oil paintings are like old photos, recording the city from glory to decline, through the process of vicissitudes of change, not to mention the collection of Turkey's most expensive auction so far a famous oil painting "Turtle Tamer", can be described as Istanbul must see the classic art palace,

I'm not a fan of Islamic culture, so I'm easily put off by the high price of admission to the major museums. I had no expectations going into Pella. The courteous manager guided me up to the fifth floor, where a spiritual journey combining tradition and modernity began.

The Pera Mesuem is closer to Independence Avenue, and admission is currently 100 lira (it seems to be free for teachers and students). From The Pera hotel, a building diagonally opposite is The Pera Museum, although the scale is not very large, but the artworks displayed here are absolutely high quality, Founded in 2005 by the Suna and Stirac Foundation (the Suna and Stirac Foundation), the museum building was formerly the Bristol Hotel designed by architect Achille Manoussos, built in 1893. It's also a famous historic building.

It is worth mentioning that the installation art on the exterior wall of the Pella Museum is very unique, this installation art is very special, made from 14,000 unused or discarded eye lenses. When a gust of wind blows, the lens will swing along the wind, just like an ocean wave. Because it is a piece of lens, when you stand in the gallery and look out, you can see each different world through the lens. "The eyes are the Windows to the soul", let us follow this huge eye to find beautiful things.


It focuses on 19th century Orientalist art and features a range of fine works by Turkish and European artists. The museum also has an impressive collection of measuring and measurement tools, which features more than 10,000 items from a wide range of measuring instruments and scales in industries ranging from pharmaceuticals to shipping.

The Pella Gallery also has a collection of more than 800 ceramic and ceramic works, mainly dating from the 18th to 20th centuries. The museum also regularly displays works by famous artists including Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Akira Kurosawa and others

The Turtle Trainer is a famous painting by the Turkish painter Osman Hamdi Bey. In 2004, the work sold for 5 million lira (about $3.5 million) and was eventually purchased by the Pera Museum, setting a record for the highest price ever paid for a painting by a Turkish artist that year and becoming an important symbol of Turkish painting history.

Except for some middle school students who visited under the guidance of their teachers, there were not many people inside. Compared with the art exhibitions in China, which are always full of people, I prefer to enjoy these art treasures quietly and closely. The museum's permanent collection is divided into three sections: Anatolian Weights and Measures, Kutahya Tiles and Ceramics, and Oriental art, It includes more than 300 paintings by European artists from the 17th to early 19th centuries inspired by the Ottoman Empire.


On the second floor of the exhibition hall, there are a lot of chic style of Turkish pottery, this art from the 15th century Ottoman Empire, tin glaze on the white background and gorgeous patterns known, because the use of hard clay, pottery looks like porcelain, decorated with underglaze painting, pattern style mimics Chinese blue and white porcelain. In addition, there are realistic figures, bird patterns, flowers, etc., in the beginning, the complex patterns were depicted in dark cyan, and later, Turkish cyan was the main color, and the pattern structure was simplified. Iznik in Anatolia is the most famous porcelain capital in Turkey, and it is still produced in large quantities.

When they saw a large number of exquisite blue and white porcelain from China, the Turks began to learn and copy it. In addition to the type of porcelain with simple colors, there are many complicated patterns, extremely bright colors, and porcelain with Islamic stories, and the color is also very different from Chinese porcelain, such as the Islamic color of green, which can be seen in many buildings with green domes or decorations. However, in the 14th century, the Mongolian nobles in Persia converted to the Sufi sect of Islam, because the Sufis themselves like blue, and believe that white is on behalf of God's holiness, so they accepted the conversion at the same time, they also accepted the blue on behalf of the Mongolian nation, and since then, blue has become the color of the Ottoman royal family.

The third floor is dominated by painting galleries, which reproduce the life of the Ottoman era, especially the paintings of 19th century Istanbul, which are as realistic as photos; On the strait without a bridge, large and small fishing boats crowded in the harbor, stone castles, city walls, towers, aqueducts, and the six minarets of the Blue Mosque in the distance were very eye-catching, which made people nostalgic for that glorious time. And about the lives of ordinary people in the Ottoman harem.

One of the paintings hanging on the front wall of the exhibition hall should be the treasure of the town of the Pella Museum, Turkey's most famous impressionist painter Osman Hamdi Bey's work "Turtle Tamer". Cat had previously seen copies of this famous painting in various forms (tapestries, prints, small paintings, etc.) on many crafts stalls in Istanbul, and now he finally saw the original, which he did not expect to see in such a large size.

Osman Hamdi Bey (1842-1910), a great painter, archaeologist and art expert of the Osman era, and the founder of the famous Istanbul Archaeological Museum, painted the Turtle Tamer more than 100 years ago, on December 12, 2004, Five trillion Turkish lira ($3.5 million, 2.64 million euros) was sold at auction in Istanbul, setting a record for a painting by a Turkish artist. The artist is said to have painted two versions in 1906 and 1907, the first of which is now on public display at the Pella Museum.

The enigmatic painting seems to convey the message that change is hard and requires patience, even the kind of patience that Sufis have. The five tortoises on the screen symbolize the indomitousness and slow change of the Ottoman Empire, which had fallen a hundred years ago, and the tortoises are dressed in Islamic red robes and turbans, holding the flute commonly used by Sufis, some say that it is Uthman himself, who tried to domesticate the animals in front of him by playing the flute, or occasionally using the spines. Unfortunately, Tortoises are disorientated by the sound of their pipes, and their thick shells can also withstand the spine thorns, so the tamers' efforts are futile, reflecting the conservative resistance of Osama's calls for Westernized reforms in the era. The fourth and fifth floors of the museum are temporary exhibition areas, which happen to exhibit the works of the Mexican painter couple Frida and Rivera, who are very loved by the cat.

The exhibitions on the fourth and fifth floors are very entertaining and interesting. The tradition is embodied in the ceramic culture and the depiction of the reproduction process of ancient human beings. Modernity is reflected in the installation art of postmodernism, which is full of the role of digital modeling and reflects on the contemporary lifestyle.




Stepping out of the Pella Museum, you will have a deeper understanding of the history, culture and art of a country with as long a history and civilization as China. Although Kemal Ataturk established the modern Turkish Republic and tried to separate itself from the declining Ottoman Empire, this was only on a political level, unlike the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art. The Pera is more reminiscent of the art that Orhan Pamuk describes in "Istanbul: Memories of a City", such as "Turtle Tamer", which Pamuk remembers as "always a city of ruins, full of the melancholy of the imperial sun". Cat finally understood that only "really understand a city, you will really love her" this sentence for Kemal's meaning.